tlHluln 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


SELF-GOVERNMENT   IN   RUSSIA 


SELF-GOVERNMENT 
IN    RUSSIA 


BY 


PAUL  VINOGRADOFF,  F.B.A. 

\  V 

CORPUS    PROFESSOR    OF    JURISPRUDENCE    IN    THE    UNIVERSITY 

OF    OXFORD,    SOMETIME    PROFESSOR    OF    HISTORY 

IN    THE   UNIVERSITY    OF    MOSCOW 


NEW  YORK 

E-P-DUTTON  &  COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 


PRINTED   BY  WILLIAM    BKKNDON    AND   SON,    LTD.,    PLYMOUTH,   ENGLAND 


HPHE    little  book  which   I   submit  to   the 

-*-     public     is    mainly     based     on     lectures 

delivered    on    various    occasions    during    the 

o 

war-year — the  1915  Henry  Sidgwick  lecture  at 
Newnham  College,  Cambridge,  an  address  to 
the  Literary  and  Philosophical  Society  of 
Leicester,  a  lecture  at  Toynbee  Hall,  London. 
Lectures  do  not  lend  themselves  to  the 
detailed  analysis  of  a  subject,  but  they  may 
gain  in  clearness  what  they  lack  in  wealth 
of  information.  I  venture,  in  any  case,  to 
address  my  readers  as  if  they  were  members 
of  a  sympathetic  audience. 

OXFORD,  November,  1915 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER    I 

PACE 

OUTLINES  OF  RUSSIAN  EVOLUTION  .  i 


CHAPTER   II 
THE  ORGANISATION  OF  SELF-GOVERNMENT          .       .    31 

CHAPTER   III 
POPULAR  EDUCATION      .  .  .  .    71 

CHAPTER   IV 
SELF-GOVERNMENT  AND  THE  WAR  .  .        .    94 


SELF-GOVERNMENT 
IN    RUSSIA 

CHAPTER    I 

OUTLINES  OF   RUSSIAN   EVOLUTION 

ENGLAND  and  Russia  seem  at  first  glance  to 
stand  at  the  opposite  poles  of  European 
civilisation  :  the  classical  country  of  constitutional- 
ism, the  centre  of  industry,  the  great  mart  of  sea 
intercourse  on  one  side,  and  the  Holy  Russia  of 
Tsardom,  the  home  of  agricultural  peasantry,  the 
vast  background  of  Continental  Europe  on  the  other. 
And  yet,  for  the  unprejudiced  observer  the  two 
countries  possess  many  common  traits  :  we  may 
notice  at  the  outset  that  the  British  are  not  only 
insular  but  cosmopolitan,  and  so  are  the  Russians. 
The  insularity  of  the  Briton  is  not  only  the  conscious 
reflex  of  a  geographical  situation,  but  the  necessary 
outcome  of  a  civilisation  moulded  within  the 
compass  of  three  seas.  And  yet  the  commercial 
and  political  intercourse  with  all  the  nations  and 
B 


2          SELF-GOVERNMENT  IN   RUSSIA 

states  of  the  earth  has  imparted  to  the  British 
people  interests  and  sympathies  of  a  widely  cosmo- 
politan character.  In  China  and  in  Turkey,  in 
Italy  and  in  Greece,  in  Albania  and  in  Serbia 
genuine  Britishers  have  been  intimately  connected 
with  the  destinies  of  the  people  and  keen  to  realise 
their  aspirations.  In  Russia,  again,  although  the 
nation  is  still  struggling  to  emerge  from  its  position 
in  the  background  of  Europe  and  although  this 
situation  in  the  rear  has  given  a  peculiar  stamp  to 
Russian  character,  people  are  alive  almost  to  excess 
to  the  variety  and  the  wealth  of  universal  ideas. 
There  is  hardly  any  other  community  which  gives 
so  much  time  and  energy  to  the  study  of  foreign 
languages,  foreign  literature,  foreign  history.  This 
similarity  is  far  deeper  than  one  might  have  sup- 
posed; the  present  crisis  has  brought  home  even 
to  the  man  in  the  street  the  fact  that  there  is  a 
vast  field  for  observation  and  enterprise  in  this 
mysterious  country  which  used  to  be  dismissed 
with  a  few  superficial  remarks  borrowed  from 
German  sources. 

In  approaching  the  subject  we  must  emancipate 
ourselves  entirely  from  the  official  sequence  of  great 
events.  It  is  not  the  history  of  ministers  and 
generals,  nor  the  tales  of  conquest  and  diplomacy, 
that  will  form  the  substance  of  my  discourse.  At 


OUTLINES  OF   EVOLUTION  3 

the  back  of  all  such  pageants  and  events  stands  the 
living  personality  of  the  nation,  and  it  is  only  facts 
relevant  to  the  understanding  of  this  personality, 
of  its  growth  and  education,  that  will  have  to  be 
described  and  examined.  They  may,  I  hope,  serve 
as  an  introduction  to  a  very  remarkable  and  power- 
ful individuality  which  is  not  likely  to  be  concealed 
much  longer  by  the  wall  of  German  malevolence 
and  obstruction. 

The  subject  is  so  wide  that  we  have  from  the 
outset  to  impose  certain  limitations  to  its  treatment. 
Twentieth-century  Russia  has  inherited  intricate 
problems  of  great  magnitude  in  many  spheres  of 
her  activity.  The  acquisition  of  new  territories 
and  nationalities  by  Imperial  conquest  has  pro- 
ceeded more  rapidly  than  the  welding  together  of 
provinces  and  races  into  a  coherent  whole  :  to  cite 
only  one  egregious  instance,  the  condition  of  the 
Jews  is  an  open  sore  and  a  scandal  which  requires 
immediate  redress.  The  necessity  of  constitutional 
changes  and  of  firm  legality  has  been  amply 
illustrated  within  the  last  decade  by  the  conflicts 
of  revolution  and  reaction.  Again,  in  the  field  of 
religious  life,  the  established  Church,  conscious  and 
proud  of  the  immense  influence  it  has  exerted  over 
the  course  of  Russian  history,  and  armed  with  means 
of  secular  coercion,  stands  confronted  by  a  growing 


4          SELF-GOVERNMENT  IN   RUSSIA 

movement  towards  free  conscience  and  free  thought. 
If  it  were  my  task  to  present  a  kind  of  mosaic  of 
present-day  impressions  it  would  be  necessary  to 
take  account  to  some  extent  of  all  these  hetero- 
geneous and  yet  converging  conflicts.  But  I  prefer 
to  follow  a  different  plan.  I  want  not  to  disperse 
but  to  concentrate  your  attention  on  one  vital  issue 
which,  to  my  mind,  is  bound  to  react  on  everything 
else.  If  Russia  succeeds  in  building  up  a  strong 
and  active  system  of  self-government,  a  basis  will 
be  formed  on  which  all  other  problems  may  be 
approached  and  solved.  Subordinate  nationalities 
will  be  able  to  preserve  their  individuality  without 
losing  touch  with  the  Empire  ;  constitutional  and 
legal  progress  will  obtain  a  firm  foundation  in  socia 
life ;  religious  freedom  will  be  advanced  and 
supported  by  the  organic  cohesion  of  local  bodies. 
There  may  be  differences  of  opinion  as  to  the  extent 
of  such  beneficial  influences,  but  there  can  hardly 
be  a  doubt  about  the  direction  in  which  the  principle 
of  self-government  will  assert  itself.  This  being  so, 
it  is  a  question  of  primary  importance  for  all 
speculations  as  to  the  future  of  Russia,  whether  the 
actual  facts  of  history  and  of  present  practice 
warrant  the  view  that  self-government  is  not  only 
a  desideratum  of  Russian  life  but  a  factor  in  being, 
the  importance  of  which  is  growing  apace.  This  is 


OUTLINES  OF  EVOLUTION  5 

the  cardinal  question  to  which  my  course  is  intended 
to  provide  an  answer.  Incidentally  its  treatment 
will  give  us  opportunities  to  review  various  other 
aspects  of  Russian  life,  but  the  main  thread  of  the 
discourse  must  not  slip  from  our  hands. 

Before  approaching  the  main  subject  of  the  dis- 
course let  us  consider  the  turning  points  of  the  main 
current  of  Russian  development  during  the  modern 
era :  such  a  preliminary  sketch  is  necessary  in  order 
to  assign  to  the  facts  their  proper  historical  per- 
spective. One  more  introductory  remark  has  to  be 
made  :  when  I  speak  of  the  main  current  of  Russian 
life  I  mean  the  evolution  of  the  Russian  nationality, 
comprising  not  only  the  Great  Russians  of  old 
Muscovy  and  Siberia,  but  the  Little  Russians  who 
joined  them  in  the  decisive  struggle  against  the 
Poles  and  the  White  Russians  reconquered  from 
Lithuania  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries. 

The  Ukraina  movement  of  which  there  has  been 
so  much  talk  lately  does  not  constitute  for  the  great 
majority  of  Little  Russians  a  motive  of  political 
cleavage,  but  an  assertion  of  cultural  peculiarities  : 
they  ought  to  have  been  freely  conceded  by  the 
Government  if  it  had  been  wiser,  and  they  are 
bound  to  be  recognised  in  a  near  future.  Ukraina 
separatism  does  exist  and  has  sometimes  led  to  an 


6          SELF-GOVERNMENT  IN   RUSSIA 

unnatural  alliance  between  excited  groups  and 
Germany  or  Austria,  but  it  would  be  preposterous 
to  suppose  that  the  people  of  Kiev  or  Kharkoff  do  not 
realise  their  fundamental  affinity  with  the  rest  of 
their  Great  Russian  kinsmen,  and  any  policy  con- 
structed on  such  a  surmise  would  prove  as  disastrous 
as  the  pact  of  Hetman  Mazeppa  with  the  Swedes. 
The  Cossacks  have  shed  their  blood  in  innumerable 
Russian  wars  in  a  very  different  spirit  from  that 
which  animates  unfortunate  Czech  and  Serb  soldiers 
driven  by  Austria-Hungary.  Variations  of  folk- 
lore and  language  do  not  alter  the  fact  that  the 
main  current  of  modern  Russian  life  embraces  both 
Moscow  and  Kiev,  as  well  as  Petrograd,  and  that 
no  of  the  170  millions  of  Russian  subjects  are 
following  its  course. 

We  started  by  taking  notice  of  certain  analogies 
between  the  situation  of  Russia  and  that  of  Great 
Britain.  Let  us  now  take  into  account  the  funda- 
mental difference  between  the  two  countries. 
Whereas  the  horizon  of  Great  Britain  opens  freely 
in  all  directions,  the  Russian  people  have  been,  as  it 
were,  slowly  revolving  from  East  to  West  in  order 
to  reach  an  outlook  free  from  obstruction. 

This  process  of  turning  round  began  some  three 
hundred  years  ago,  and  is  not  quite  completed 
even  now. 


OUTLINES  OF  EVOLUTION  7 

I  am  alluding,  of  course,  to  the  powerful  impetus 
imparted  to  Russian  life  by  the  conversion  from 
Muscovite  to  European  civilisation.  It  was  drasti- 
cally embodied  in  Peter  the  Great's  well-known 
reforms,  including,  as  they  did,  not  only  the  organi- 
sation of  an  army  drilled  according  to  Western 
methods,  the  building  of  a  sea-going  fleet,  the 
acquisition  of  the  Baltic  shores,  the  foundation  of 
a  new  capital  in  close  proximity  to  Sweden  and  to 
Germany,  but  also  changes  in  the  alphabet,  the 
opening  of  various  schools,  the  obligation  for  men 
of  the  privileged  class  to  shave  and  to  wear  short, 
tight-fitting  garments. 

The  age  of  Peter  the  Great  forms  undoubtedly  a 
convenient  landmark  in  popular  history,  but  for 
students  the  transformation  began  earlier,  and  it 
was  not  only  a  secular  and  technical  one,  but  a 
religious  and  cultural  movement  as  well.  It 
coincided  with  the  accession  of  the  Romanoff 
dynasty,  which  symbolises  the  national  revival 
against  Polish  aggression  and  the  reconstitution  of 
a  firm  State  after  an  "  age  of  trouble."  In  the 
fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  the  nation  was 
directing  its  energies  towards  the  East  and  organis- 
ing to  meet  the  demands  of  the  struggle  against  the 
Tartars  on  the  Volga  and  in  the  Crimea ;  in  the 
seventeenth  the  principal  front  was  turned  towards 


8          SELF-GOVERNMENT  IN   RUSSIA 

the  West,  against  the  Swedes,  and  especially  the 
Poles,  who  nearly  strangled  the  Muscovite  State 
in  the  opening  years  of  the  century  and  who  were 
slowly  and  gradually  driven  back  from  Moscow, 
Smolensk  and  Kiev.  In  these  terrible  wars  the 
practical  needs  of  military  organisation,  technical 
skill  and  fiscal  resources  forcibly  asserted  them- 
selves. Foreign  soldiers,  doctors,  merchants  and 
craftsmen  were  called  up  in  ever-increasing  numbers, 
chiefly  Germans  and  Western  Slavs,  but  also  a 
good  many  English  and  Scots.  Among  the  first 
commanders  of  troops  drilled  according  to  Western 
methods  were  e.g.  Sir  Arthur  Aston,  conspicuous 
later  on  in  the  army  of  Charles  I,  a  Leslie,  a  Gordon, 
etc.  The  formation  of  "  foreign  "  settlements  like 
the  famous  German  quarter  in  Moscow,  still  recog- 
nisable by  the  names  of  a  street  and  the  old  Lutheran 
church  built  in  1654,  may  be  regarded  as  the  start- 
ing point  of  a  rapidly  increasing  influx  of  men  and 
ideas.  The  intercourse  with  the  Poles  and  with 
the  Greek  East  created  two  other  channels  of 
cultural  permeation.  The  first  conspicuous  result 
of  this  process  was  the  ecclesiastical  reform  carried 
out  in  the  third  quarter  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  a  reform  of  which  Patriarch  Nikon  was 
the  most  active  promoter.  Its  aim  was  to  bring 
the  Russian  Church  into  a  closer  connection  with 


OUTLINES  OF  EVOLUTION  9 

the  Eastern  orthodoxy  by  removing  various  debased 
practices  which  had  grown  up  in  consequence  of  the 
political  isolation  and  the  insufficient  culture  of 
Muscovy.  It  was  intended,  among  other  things,  to 
obtain  a  purified  and  more  rational  understanding 
of  the  Gospel  and  of  Church  service — a  kind  of 
Church  Slavonic  reformation  adapted  to  the  tastes 
and  requirements  of  orthodox  Muscovy.  Revised 
versions  of  the  Holy  Books  and  of  the  various 
services  were  taken  in  hand  with  the  help  of  learned 
monks  from  Mount  Athos  and  from  Kiev.  The 
characteristic  practice  of  a  simultaneous  reading  of 
prayers  crammed  from  consecutive  stages  of  the 
Church  service  was  abandoned,  the  preaching  of 
sermons  was  revived,  and  many  local  customs  which 
had  arisen  in  the  Russian  Church  were  corrected  in 
accordance  with  general  Eastern  traditions.  This 
official  rejuvenation  of  the  Church  provoked  the 
stubborn  opposition  of  the  Old  Ritualists,  the 
raskolniks,  blindly  bigoted  in  their  unreasoning 
clinging  to  errors  sanctified  by  national  usage,  but 
grand  in  their  spirit  of  independence,  in  their 
unconquerable  protest  against  arbitrary  ordinances 
in  matters  of  creed.  One  of  them,  Priest  Avvakum,1 
sat  for  years  in  a  cell  at  Pustosersk  in  the  far 
North  and  never  ceased  to  reprove  the  Tsar  for 
1  Habakkuk. 


io        SELF-GOVERNMENT   IN   RUSSIA 

suffering  the  spread  of  new-fangled  notions,  to 
exhort  the  pilgrims  flocking  to  him  from  all  parts 
of  Russia  to  stand  firm  in  the  old  creed.  When  he 
was  called  up,  in  1667,  before  a  synod  at  which  two 
dignitaries  of  the  Eastern  Church  were  present, 
they  reproached  him  with  his  stubborn  disobedience 
to  the  decrees  of  canonic  authorities  in  the  matter 
of  making  the  sign  of  the  cross  with  two  fingers 
according  to  local  Muscovite  usage  and  not  with 
three  fingers,  as  the  rest  of  the  Christian  world — 
the  Greeks,  the  Romans,  the  Poles.  He  said : 
"  Rome  has  fallen  long  ago  and  the  Poles  have 
perished  with  it,  and  even  your  orthodoxy  is  a  very 
mixed  one — you  have  grown  weak  through  the 
violence  of  Turkish  Mahomet,  you  had  better  come 
to  us.  By  the  grace  of  God  we  have  preserved 
autocracy,  and  our  orthodoxy  was  pure  and  free 
from  vice  up  to  the  time  of  the  apostate  Nikon,  and 
our  Church  is  free  of  trouble."  In  his  wonderful 
autobiography  Avvakum  summarised  his  position 
in  the  following  words,  worthy  of  a  better  cause  : 
"  I  am  not  clever  and  not  learned,  but  this  I  know, 
that  all  that  has  been  transmitted  to  us  by  the 
Holy  Fathers  of  the  Church  is  holy  and  immacu- 
late :  I  hold  it  till  death  as  I  have  received  it.  I  do 
not  draw  limits  to  the  eternal :  it  has  been  laid 
down  before  us  and  so  let  it  stand  until  the  end  of 


OUTLINES  OF  EVOLUTION  n 

centuries."  No  wonder  the  spirit  of  this  and 
similar  confessors  commanded  unbounded  reverence 
among  the  simple  people  around.  When  Awakum 
was  overcome  one  day  with  pity  for  his  wife  and 
children  who  had  to  endure  persecution  and  suffer- 
ing for  his  sake,  his  wife  said  to  him  :  "  What  are 
you  talking,  husband,  go  to  church,  confute  the 
depravation  of  the  heretics." 

Against  this  unreasoning  fidelity  to  national  cus- 
tom there  reacted  the  consciousness  of  the  wrongs 
and  weaknesses  entailed  by  ignorance  and  backward 
habits.  This  feeling  was  spreading  more  and  more 
widely  and  some  of  the  best  men  of  the  age  were 
strongly  affected  by  it.  One  among  many,  for 
instance,  was  the  Chamberlain  of  Tsar  Alexis, 
Rtistcheff,  a  man  of  singular  charity  and  wisdom. 
The  task  of  helping  sufferers  was  for  him  not  a 
matter  of  casual  attention,  but  the  constant  pre- 
occupation of  his  whole  life.  As  an  old  man  he  set 
out  with  the  army  in  a  campaign  against  the  Poles, 
and  began  his  journey  in  a  comfortable  carriage, 
but  soon  had  to  continue  on  horseback,  because  he 
filled  the  carriage  with  sick  and  wounded.  One  of 
his  preoccupations  was  to  start  a  leading  school  in 
Moscow :  he  collected  some  thirty  monks  from 
Western  Russia  into  the  St.  Andrew  convent 
founded  by  him  and  succeeded  in  attracting  pupils 


12        SELF-GOVERNMENT  IN   RUSSIA 

from  the  city.     He  attended  himself,  as  a  pupil, 
classes  of  Greek,  Latin  and  Church  Slavonic. 

This  curious  introduction  to  the  modern  history 
of  Russia  is  not  only  significant  of  the  profound 
religious  background  of  Russian  life ;  it  also  sets 
vividly  before  us  the  two  groups  into  which  the 
Russian  nation  is  to  some  extent  divided  even 
now — the  enlightened,  rather  materialistic  State, 
together  with  the  upper,  highly  educated  classes 
on  one  hand — the  great  mass  of  the  people,  still 
clinging  to  ancient  manners  and  customs  on  the 
other.  Even  in  outward  appearance  one  sees  the 
two  societies  mixed  and  yet  distinct  in  the  streets 
of  Moscow,  Tula,  Orel  or  any  other  Great  Rus- 
sian town — the  men  in  Western  attire — in  bowlers 
and  jackets  that  might  have  been  made  in 
Vienna,  and  the  men  in  long  garments  and 
top-boots,  reminding  one  of  Eastern  lands.  The 
contrast  goes,  in  truth,  far  deeper  than  outward 
appearance,  and  the  extreme  views  of  Old  Ritual- 
ists make  us  realise  the  fact  that  the  cleavage 
between  East  and  West,  between  the  upper  classes 
brought  up  in  European  schools  and  the  lower 
classes  following  Muscovite  traditions,  is  not  worn 
out  even  now,  and  has  to  be  traced  to  this  water- 
shed of  the  seventeenth  century.  I  remember  a 
quaint  sight  illustrating  that  point.  A  good  many 


OUTLINES  OF   EVOLUTION  13 

years  ago  a  party  of  "  intellectuals  " — journalists 
and  University  men — of  whom  I  was  one,  drove  to 
a  settlement  of  the  Old  Ritualists  in  the  Rogojsky 
quarter  of  Moscow.  We  assisted  at  a  service  in 
front  of  Ikons  dating  from  before  Patriarch  Nikon, 
and  we  listened  to  old-world  litanies  and  prayers. 
When  the  service  which  took  place  in  the  middle 
of  the  church  was  over,  we  were  conducted  towards 
the  inner  chapel  of  the  altar.  It  was  closed  and 
seals  were  affixed  to  the  gates  :  they  were  seals  of 
different  public  departments  put  on  because  the 
Government,  though  tolerating  ordinary  functions 
in  the  Church,  did  not  allow  the  Old  Ritualists  to 
celebrate  High  Mass  for  fear  of  their  making 
converts  among  the  adherents  of  the  established 
Church.  Persecutions  and  annoyances  of  this  kind 
have  ceased  now,  but  the  recollection  of  them  is  still 
fresh  and  one  cannot  wonder  at  the  fact  that  the 
Old  Ritualists  likened  the  seals  of  the  Ministries  to 
the  seal  of  Antichrist  described  in  the  revelation  of 
St.  John. 

The  dualism  of  Russian  life  is  a  source  of  peculiar 
difficulties  for  the  development  of  the  country.  It 
is  not  easy  to  combine  the  interests  and  views  of  the 
rich  and  of  the  poor  in  any  community,  but  it  is 
doubly  difficult  to  assure  mutual  understanding 
and  trust  between  sets  which  represent  two  different 


14        SELF-GOVERNMENT  IN   RUSSIA 

kinds  of  civilisation.  The  people  of  Western  educa- 
tion are  striving  hard  to  overcome  this  initial 
difficulty.  The  expression  "to  go  among  the 
people  "  has  a  special  meaning  in  Russia — it  points 
to  the  wish  of  making  propaganda  for  advanced 
political  and  social  ideas,  but  it  may  also  indicate 
the  striving  towards  a  simpler  life  and  a  communion 
of  aspirations  in  which  the  privileged  class  re- 
nounces its  assumption  of  superior  wisdom  and 
higher  culture.  The  evolution  of  Modern  Russia 
is  intimately  connected  with  the  gradual  "  solution  " 
of  these  discords,  the  overcoming  of  this  fundamental 
dualism  of  Russian  life.  It  aims  at  the  inclusion  of 
Russian  culture  within  the  wider  sphere  of  universal 
civilisation,  while  at  the  same  time  national  origin- 
ality should  be  preserved. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  in  its  early  stages  the 
process  of  Western  orientation  was  powerfully 
furthered  by  the  policy  of  a  strong  centralistic 
government  striving  towards  power,  wealth,  external 
efficiency.  Peter  the  Great  and  Catherine  the  Great 
are  prominent  among  the  leaders  of  this  compulsory 
enlightenment.  They  are  both  full-blooded  repre- 
sentatives of  providential  absolutism  and  the 
civilisation  which  grew  up  under  their  guidance  is 
characterised  by  a  hard,  aggressive  spirit  of  technical, 
rationalistic  utility. 


OUTLINES  OF  EVOLUTION  15 

Peter  the  Great  may  be  regarded  as  the  most 
famous  exponent  of  the  utilitarian  theory  of  enlight- 
enment through  strong  government.  In  his  mani- 
festo published  in  1702  he  sets  forth  how  all  his 
efforts  and  endeavours  had  been  directed  since  his 
accession  towards  such  a  rule  as  would  secure  to  all 
his  subjects  an  increase  in  prosperity  and  welfare 
through  the  maintenance  of  peace  and  order  at  home, 
protection  against  foreign  enemies  and  progress  of 
trade.  To  improve  the  condition  of  the  subjects  in 
order  and  knowledge,  and  in  view  of  the  fact  that 
they  were  not  yet  sufficiently  versed  in  these  matters, 
foreigners  skilled  in  arts  were  invited  from  all  lands 
for  the  better  instruction  of  the  army,  the  furtherance 
of  commerce.  They  were  promised  complete  freedom 
of  conscience,  all  sorts  of  privileges  and  a  special 
standing  in  law  before  courts  empowered  to  decide 
cases  in  which  such  foreigners  were  concerned,  not 
by  Russian  laws,  but  in  accordance  with  Divine 
ordinances  and  the  civil  law  of  Rome.  It  must 
not  be  supposed  that  the  official  action  of  strong 
government  led  only  to  mechanical  compulsion  : 
society  responded  to  it  more  and  more,  not  only  on 
account  of  external  successes,  but  as  a  result  of  a 
gradual  awakening  to  the  value  and  beauty  of 
knowledge.  A  characteristic  example  may  be  seen 
in  the  career  of  the  spiritual  founder  of  the  Uni- 


16        SELF-GOVERNMENT  IN   RUSSIA 

versity  of  Moscow,  Lomonosoff,  the  son  of  a  fisher- 
man, born  on  the  shore  of  the  White  Sea.  His  zeal 
for  learning  was  kindled  by  his  admiration  for 
Peter's  work.  At  the  age  of  twenty  he  came  to 
Moscow  and  spent  five  years  in  great  poverty,  while 
acquiring  the  rudiments  of  literary  education. 
Eventually  he  went  to  Germany,  where  he  studied 
philosophy  and  science  under  Wolf;  he  was  kid- 
napped by  the  recruiting  sergeants  of  the  King  of 
Prussia  and  pressed  into  a  grenadier  regiment,  but 
succeeded  in  escaping  and  made  his  way  back  to 
Russia.  He  became  a  professor  and  a  leading  author- 
ity on  physics,  chemistry  and  metallurgy  as  well  as 
on  grammar,  literature  and  history.  He  was,  among 
other  things,  one  of  the  first  enthusiastic  students 
of  electrical  phenomena  and  the  manager  of  a 
school  and  workshop  for  mosaic  art.  The  keynote 
of  his  restless  activity  is  sounded  in  one  of  his  odes 
in  which  he  glorifies  Peter  the  Great. 

Addressing  the  pioneers  of  Russian  intellectual 
progress  he  exclaimed  :  "  You,  whom  the  father- 
land expects  to  arise  from  its  own  body  and  whom 
it  wishes  to  equal  men  called  up  from  foreign 
lands,  be  of  good  cheer  !  Show  by  your  exertions 
that  Russia  is  able  to  give  birth  to  Platos  of  her 
own  and  to  quick-witted  Newtons." 

Thus  the  successes  achieved  by  the  strong  govern- 


OUTLINES  OF  EVOLUTION  17 

ment  in  the  reigns  of  Peter,  Catherine,  Alexander, 
Nicholas  I  were  not  a  mere  display  of  external 
power.  The  nation  did  not  only  acquire  a  position 
of  vantage  in  the  world,  but  it  asserted  its  national 
worth  in  many  a  desperate  struggle  and  developed 
considerably  on  the  lines  of  State  organisation. 
The  most  curious  point  is,  however,  that  although 
the  light  of  universal  civilisation  was  introduced 
for  practical  aims  by  the  Government,  its  growth 
and  diffusion  became  a  force  independent  of  govern- 
mental guidance  and  fetters.  A  momentous  process 
of  internal  growth  proceeded  under  the  cover  of  these 
outward  achievements ;  it  began  to  manifest  itself 
in  a  striking  manner,  directly  after  the  titanic 
struggle  with  Napoleon,  in  the  shape  of  a  free 
and  original  literature  :  Pushkin,  Kryloff,  Gogol 
testify  to  that  awakening,  but  perhaps  the  main 
expression  of  this  process  of  ripening  conscious- 
ness is  the  cultural  harvest  of  the  'forties.  It 
falls  into  an  age  when  the  Nicholas  regime  exerted 
the  most  uncompromising  censorship  on  inde- 
pendent thought,  when  Kireyevsky's  moderate  re- 
flections were  prohibited,  Shevtchenko  was  exiled 
to  a  far-off  fortress  in  the  East  for  singing  of  Cossack 
valour  and  turbulence,  and  Herzen  had  to  fly  over 
the  border  on  account  of  his  radicalism.  And 
yet  the  intellectual  tendencies  and  forces  were 
c 


i8        SELF-GOVERNMENT  IN   RUSSIA 

being  accumulated  by  the  best  men  of  the  time — 
chiefly  around  the  Universities,  but  also  in  all  other 
centres  of  education  and  learning,  in  the  ecclesiastical 
seminaries,  as  well  as  in  military  schools.  The 
leading  feature  of  this  great  revival  is  its  philo- 
sophical and  humanistic  character.  The  followers 
of  Peter  the  Great  were  striving  to  acquire  know- 
ledge for  the  sake  of  technical  skill,  the  con- 
temporaries of  Catherine  II  were  confident  that 
encyclopaedic  rationalism  has  the  power  to  solve  all 
problems  by  the  help  of  scientific  methods,  the 
idealists  of  the  'forties  sought  regeneration  and 
progress  in  raising  many-sided  philosophic  specula- 
tion as  an  appeal  to  the  dignity  and  inner  freedom 
of  man.  The  discovery  of  the  charmed,  unconquer- 
able world  of  human  ideals  right  amidst  the 
officialdom  and  the  crude  violence  of  the  surround- 
ing regime  inspired  this  generation  of  the  'forties 
with  unbounded  enthusiasm  and  a  sensitiveness  in 
regard  to  all  manifestations  of  independent  thought 
and  artistic  beauty,  which  has  never  been  rivalled 
either  in  Russia  or  in  any  other  country.  A  figure 
like  that  of  Granovsky,  professor  of  history  in  the 
University  of  Moscow,  was  the  very  embodiment 
of  Western  enlightenment  and  humanitarian  liberal- 
ism :  he  could  not  come  forward  with  a  direct 
criticism  of  official  rule,  and  his  lectures  on  mediaeval 


OUTLINES  OF  EVOLUTION  19 

Europe,  or  on  the  connection  between  geographical 
and  political  factors  in  history,  were  straightforward 
and  scientific,  and  never  meant  to  serve  as  a  screen 
for  allusions  to  modern  misdoings.  But  his  pupils 
and  educated  society  at  large  listened  to  every  word 
of  his  with  rapt  attention  because  it  opened  before 
them  a  vista  of  noble,  disinterested,  free  thought : 
it  was  like  a  breath  of  fresh  air  penetrating 
into  the  stifling  atmosphere  of  servility  and 
superstition.  However,  it  is  not  necessary  for 
me  to  dwell  long  on  the  ideas  propagated  by 
"  Westerners "  like  Granovsky,  Herzen,  Bielinsky. 
They  were  the  familiar  ideas  of  European  liberal- 
ism and  radicalism,  though  endowed  with  particular 
vitality  and  freshness.  It  is  more  significant  to 
notice  the  trend  of  thought  of  another  intellectual 
set  of  the  'forties  and  'fifties,  namely,  the  teaching 
of  so-called  Slavophiles,  representing  the  other  aspect 
of  Russian  dualism.  These  men  had  also  been 
taught  at  the  Universities  and  had  reflected  on 
philosophical  and  religious  problems ;  they  were  far 
away  from  the  unreasoning  stubbornness  of  the 
Old  Ritualists ;  but,  like  the  latter,  they  clung  to  the 
belief  in  the  peculiar  genius  of  the  Russian  people 
and  sought  salvation  not  in  a  repetition  of  Western 
methods,  but  in  an  original  contribution  to  the 
general  history  of  culture. 


20         SELF-GOVERNMENT    IN    RUSSIA 

Kireyevsky,  Khomiakoff,  Aksakoff  formulated 
various  aspects  of  this  view.  I  should  like  to  call 
your  attention  to  one  of  them,  to  Constantine 
Aksakoff  on  account  of  the  importance  of  his 
historical  doctrine.  Constantine  was  a  dreamer, 
entirely  unfit  for  any  other  life  but  that  of  study. 
He  never  married,  never  took  up  any  external 
career,  lived  till  he  was  forty  years  of  age  as  an 
inmate  of  his  father's  house,  and  broke  down  at 
once  when  his  father  died.  It  was  a  touching  story 
and  an  exceptional  one — this  pining  away  of  a 
man  who  had  been  conspicuous  for  his  high  spirits, 
as  well  as  for  his  physical  strength.  Something  of 
the  same  fanatical  earnestness  pervades  Constan- 
tine's  literary  activity :  he  does  not  see  many 
things,  he  does  not  understand  mean  terms  and 
compromises,  he  just  goes  with  his  whole  heart 
into  the  few  objects  of  his  pursuits — a  child  and  a 
giant  at  the  same  time.  His  main  idea  was,  that 
instead  of  looking  down  upon  the  common  people 
we  have  to  learn  from  them.  It  is  worked  out  in  a 
rather  amusing  way  in  a  comedy  entitled  "  Prince 
Lupovitsky."  The  hero  is  discovered  engaged  in 
conversation  with  friends  in  a  Paris  restaurant.  He 
tells  them  of  his  wish  to  go  to  Russia  and  do  some- 
thing for  civilising  his  peasants.  One  of  his  com- 
panions, Count  Dolinsky,  finds  the  notion  ridiculous. 


OUTLINES  OF  EVOLUTION  21 

"  Our  peasants — are  they  men  ?  Do  you  know 
what  their  destination  is  ?  They  exist  in  order 
that  we,  the  educated  people,  may  enjoy  all  the 
pleasures  of  civilisation — c'est  le  mot.  That  I,  for 
instance,  may  live  in  Paris  and  dine  at  the  Cafe  de 
Paris.  Us  ne  sont  bons  qu'd  $a  et  c'est  encore  trop 
d'honneur  pour  eux." — The  other  friend,  Baron 
Salutin,  explains  that  if  Lupovitsky  will  insist  upon 
his  whim,  then  he  ought  to  make  up  his  mind  to 
drive  the  peasantry  into  civilisation  by  sheer  force : 
"  you  want  an  iron  hand  ;  une  main  de  fer.  Make 
them  into  paste  and  then  knead  it  as  you  like.  C'est 
ainsi  que  Pierre  le  Grand  a  agi  envers  nous."  Lupo- 
vitsky is  of  gentler  temper  and  tries  persuasion 
and  instruction,  when  he  returns  to  his  native 
country-seat  and  meets  his  subjects.  He  begins  by 
making  a  speech  about  his  sentiments  and  plans, 
and  then  calls  up  the  village  elder,  the  starosta,  to 
instruct  him  about  the  duties  of  man.  The  noble 
philanthropist  tells  the  starosta  that  he  will  buy 
books  for  the  instruction  of  the  people. — S.  What 
books,  sir  ? — L.  There  are  many  books  written  to 
suit  simple  minds.  They  treat  of  subjects  which 
are  necessary  to  the  peasant,  for  instance,  what  is 
an  ox  ? — S.  An  ox  ? — L.  Yes,  an  ox.  I  hope  an  ox 
is  very  important  in  your  life. — S.  But,  sir,  we  know 
about  it.  How  should  one  not  know  what  one 


22        SELF-GOVERNMENT    IN    RUSSIA 

is  tending  all  through  life. — L.  It  is  not  only  about 
oxen,  but  also  about  moral  duties,  that  people 
ought  not  to  lie,  to  get  drunk. — S.  Everybody  knows 
so  much,  sir,  only  people  do  not  act  up  to  it. — 
L.  Yes,  but  still  it  won't  be  amiss  to  read. — S.  No,  it 
won't  be  amiss  to  read,  but  it  has  been  written  so 
well  in  old  books.  There  are  books  about  it. — L. 
What  books  do  you  mean  ? — S.  The  Holy  Books, 
sir.  Please  buy  them,  sir.  There  is  much  in  the 
same  strain  and  the  conversation  ends  by  the 
conversion  of  the  nobleman.  He  is  especially  im- 
pressed by  the  common  sense  and  the  high  moral 
standard  of  the  Mir,  the  Village  Community,  and 
winds  up  by  saying :  "I  shall  leave  with  the 
greatest  respect  for  the  peasant.  Je  vous  estime, 
Monsieur  le  peuple." 

The  main  tendency  of  Constantine  Aksakoff's 
writings  is  well  rendered  by  this  caricature.  He 
never  aimed  at  artistic  perfection.  Everything  had 
to  serve  his  political  philosophy.  He  praised  some 
of  Turgeneff's  novels  from  this  point  of  view,  but 
he  was  very  bitter  in  his  appreciation  of  a  contem- 
porary lyric  poet.  '  What  is  the  use  of  always 
singing  out,  love,  love,  love,  dear,  dear,  dear  ?  " 

Constantine  Aksakoff's  chief  desire  was  to  give 
a  new  explanation  of  Russian  history  and  Russian 
ideals.  He  looks  for  stray  bits  of  intelligence 


OUTLINES  OF  EVOLUTION  23 

likely  to  prove  that  the  people  were  organised  into 
democratic  communities  and  well  capable  of  having 
their  say  in  public  affairs. 

But  he  repudiated  all  wish  to  set  up  a  re- 
publican theory.  He  does  not  even  want  to  be  a 
liberal  in  the  European  sense  of  the  word ;  he  hates 
all  such  Western  party  cries.  In  regard  to  Russia 
he  discovers  a  curious  duality  of  principles — on  one 
side  is  the  land,  on  the  other  the  State.  The  land 
consists  of  communities  and  is  a  community  of  the 
folk  by  itself,  but  it  does  not  concern  itself  with 
questions  of  power.  Everything  that  has  to  do  with 
law,  coercion,  external  power  has  been  handed  over 
to  the  State,  and  in  such  questions  the  land  has  only 
a  consultative  voice.  Aksakoff  thinks,  that  the 
voluntary  subjection  to  the  State  is  a  distinctive 
feature  of  Russian  history.  Instead  of  beginning  with 
a  conquest,  it  begins  with  the  calling  in  of  Norman 
chiefs  by  the  Russian  tribes.  The  moral  unity  of 
the  people  exists  quite  apart  from  any  power  of  the 
sword — it  depends  on  conviction  and  the  feeling  of 
brotherhood.  But  the  world  is  not  satisfied  with 
such  unity — it  is  a  world  of  strife,  and  therefore 
external  order  must  intervene  to  make  the  unity 
complete :  external  order,  with  its  State  direction, 
its  prisons  and  soldiers.  The  Russian  people  is  in 
favour  of  the  moral  unity  and  does  not  make  much 


24       SELF-GOVERNMENT    IN    RUSSIA 

of  legal  formalities.  This  is  why  it  puts  up  with  a 
political  organisation  concentrated  round  the  Tsar. 
The  simpler,  the  more  straightforward  the  fabric  of 
State  authority,  the  better  it  is.  There  is  nothing 
in  Russian  history  savouring  of  an  attempt  of  the 
people  to  get  hold  of  politics,  to  transact  State 
affairs  directly  by  its  own  hands.  Let  us  notice  in 
passing  that  Aksakoff  was  not  quite  a  dreamer  in 
this  respect.  Notwithstanding  all  the  attempts  of 
centralising  bureaucracy,  there  was  still  a  good  deal 
of  self-government  going  on  in  Russia — every 
village  community  was  a  little  world  by  itself  for 
the  management  of  its  affairs,  although  subjected  to 
the  squire  and  to  the  Imperial  officials.  And  in  every 
province  the  landed  gentry  still  formed  a  kind  of 
corporation  with  a  considerable  class  feeling  and 
important  rights  and  duties  in  local  government. 
The  Central  power  was  doing  its  best  to  curtail  all 
these  independent  elements,  and  men  of  Aksakoffs 
stamp  were  picturing  to  themselves  an  ideal  state 
of  things,  when  each  of  the  two  agents  would  have 
its  free  play  and  both  would  live  together  in  har- 
mony. 

It  is  strange,  however,  that  Aksakoff  should  not 
have  realised  the  serious  antagonism  between  his 
plans  and  the  existing  form  of  government  in 
Russia,  or  rather  that  he  did  not  quite  make  up  his 


OUTLINES  OF  EVOLUTION  25 

mind  about  settling  contradictions  in  some  definite 
way.  We  find  him  at  one  and  the  same  time  an 
enthusiastic  admirer  of  the  absolute  Tsar,  as  a 
representative  of  national  greatness  and  strength, 
and  a  staunch  enemy  of  Petersburg  policy,  that  is 
of  centralising  bureaucracy. 

He  will  not  hear  of  a  constitution — this  is  just 
one  of  those  miserable  Western  contract-notions 
which  have  become  so  important  in  the  history  of 
Europe,  because  they  proceed  from  conquest  and 
from  party-strife. 

The  Russian  people  has  never  been  divided  into 
conquerors  and  conquered — let  it  not  be  divided 
into  political  parties. 

;<  There  are  some  who  would  tell  us  the  people  or 
the  government  may  break  their  pledges  :  guaran- 
tees are  needed.  No  guarantees  !  Guarantees  are 
evil.  Where  they  are  needed,  there  is  no  good — it 
is  better  that  life  in  which  there  is  no  good  may  be 
destroyed,  than  that  it  should  exist  through  evil." 

Russian  political  life  is  based  on  the  implicit 
confidence  of  the  people  in  their  ruler,  and  it  must 
be  added  that  the  sentiment  was  for  a  long  time 
returned  by  the  ruler  in  regard  to  the  people.  The 
relations  between  the  Tsar  and  his  council,  his 
Duma,  are  very  characteristic  of  this  point. 

But  if  it  had  been  so  in  the  past,  one  could  not  say 


26        SELF-GOVERNMENT   IN    RUSSIA 

that  it  was  so  in  the  present.  The  power  of  the 
Tsar  stood  firm  and  uncontested  as  before,  but  the 
institutions  representing  the  free  advice  of  the 
nations  had  disappeared.  Aksakoff  could  not 
but  deplore  the  want  of  confidence  which  had  done 
away  with  the  Duma  and  the  Sobor.  Altogether 
he  was  no  friend  of  the  new  practices  in  the  ad- 
ministration, and  saw  no  reason  whatever  for  its 
greed  of  power  and  the  distrust  of  all  local  and 
individual  originality  which  inspired  the  govern- 
ment of  his  time.  Such  persecution  of  one  element 
of  the  people  by  another  was,  in  his  view,  quite 
against  the  old  Muscovite  traditions.  He  had  a 
ready  explanation  for  the  mischief :  it  was  the  plain 
outcome  of  the  unhappy  connection  with  the  West. 
It  is  for  the  sake  of  such  flimsy  pageants  in 
the  Western  style  that  the  government  has  been 
seduced  to  forsake  national  tradition.  Peter 
the  Great  is  answerable  for  the  misdeed.  He  in- 
augurated the  unhappy  Petersburg  period  of 
Russian  history.  Constantine  Aksakoff  has  ex- 
pressed his  feelings  in  regard  to  Peter  in  some  verses 
which,  though  not  distinguished  by  great  poetical 
merit,  are  very  characteristic  of  his  views. 

"  A  man  of  genius  and  of  blood-stained  fame,  you 
stand  far  off  on  the  border  in  the  halo  of  terrible 
glory  and  armed  with  your  axe.  In  the  name  of 


OUTLINES  OF  EVOLUTION  27 

usefulness  and  science  you  have  often  dyed  your 
hands  in  the  blood  of  your  people,  and  your  swift 
thought  told  you  that  the  seed  of  knowledge  would 
quickly  grow  when  watered  with  blood. — But  wait ! 
The  spirit  of  the  people  has  drawn  back  in  the 
time  of  trouble,  but  it  keeps  its  eternal  right. 
It  is  waiting  for  the  hour  when  a  national  voice 
will  again  call  forth  the  waves  of  the  people. — You 
have  despised  all  Russian  life,  and  in  return  a  curse  lies 
on  your  great  work.  .  .  .  You  have  discarded  Moscow, 
and  far  from  the  people  you  have  built  a  solitary 
city  which  bears  your  name  in  a  foreign  tongue. 
And  this  city  feasting  by  the  sea  has  exhausted  the 
life  of  the  nation.  But  your  feat  is  a  wrong,  and 
the  nation  will  rise  again  some  day  for  ancient 
Moscow.  Then  it  will  pardon  you." 

You  see  that  although  Aksakoff  did  not  want  in 
the  least  to  preach  liberalism  in  the  Western  sense 
of  the  word,  still  his  appeal  to  the  traditions  of  Old 
Russian  life  was  conceived  in  direct  opposition  to 
the  policy  of  the  government.  Absolutism  as  a  cen- 
tralised rule  of  the  policy  of  supervision  was  in  his 
view  quite  as  Western  as  constitutionalism.  The 
ideal  of  mutual  goodwill  and  confidence  he  sought 
in  the  Muscovite  period,  and  as  his  resentment  of 
present  wrongs  concentrated  into  a  plain  and  clear 
historical  protest  against  Peter's  reform,  so  his  hope 


28       SELF-GOVERNMENT   IN    RUSSIA 

of  future  revival  was  bound  up  with  the  thought 
that  Moscow  would  take  the  place  of  St.  Petersburg. 

The  next  stage  was  reached  when  the  idealists  and 
dreamers  had  to  be  summoned  and  to  correct  the 
work  of  the  official  leaders,  of  the  generals  and  privy 
councillors  whose  bankruptcy  was  proclaimed  by 
the  Crimean  war.  The  marvellous  feature  of  the 
situation  in  the  'sixties  was  not  that  the  government 
of  Alexander  II  had  to  submit  to  criticism  and 
reform,  but  that  it  found  ready  to  take  charge  of 
practical  politics  so  many  men  who  were  able  to 
cope  with  the  immense  difficulties  of  the  many  tasks 
imposed  upon  them.  The  value  of  university  educa- 
tion asserted  itself  brilliantly  by  the  side  of  the 
traditional  training  in  administration  which  the 
gentry  had  acquired  in  the  course  of  Imperial 
history. 

A  society  sedulously  kept  under  tutelage  by 
Nicholas  I  proved  capable  in  the  'sixties  of 
carrying  out  stupendous  and  lasting  reforms.  It  is 
sufficiently  known  how  the  liberal  movement  of  the 
'sixties  gave  place  to  the  embittered  revolutionary 
propaganda  of  the  'seventies.  Not  that  this  pro- 
paganda embraced  and  concentrated  all  the  aspira- 
tions of  the  men  of  Western  persuasion  in  Russia : 
the  majority  of  them  harboured  ideas  of  moderate 
constitutionalism  and  of  democratic  evolution.  But 


OUTLINES  OF  EVOLUTION  29 

moderate  parties  are  never  successful  in  the  begin- 
ning of  a  great  crisis.  Their  turn  comes  when  the  ex- 
treme votaries  of  contending  parties  have  sufficiently 
maltreated  and  exhausted  each  other,  and  some 
compromise  has  to  be  arranged  as  the  outcome  of 
the  struggle.  It  would  be  out  of  the  question  to 
rehearse  the  striking  events  of  recent  years — the 
reaction  under  Alexander  III,  its  breakdown  in  the 
Japanese  war,  the  rush  for  liberties  in  the  fateful 
years  1905  and  1906,  the  renewed  attempts  at 
strong  government  and  the  advent  of  the  present 
crisis.  What  I  want  to  emphasise,  in  conclusion,  is 
the  fact  that  the  present  situation  is  in  no  way  an 
accidental  one.  It  has  been  produced  and  prepared 
by  the  whole  course  of  Russian  culture  and  politics. 
The  two  great  currents  of  Russian  life  have  met 
again,  but  this  time  they  act  in  conjunction  to 
ward  off  the  traditional  enemy  of  the  race,  the 
hostile  power  which  is  seeking  to  imprison  the 
nation  for  ever  in  a  back  room  of  Europe  in  order  to 
exploit  it  at  leisure  for  its  own  economic  and  political 
ends.  This  is  impossible  and  will  not  be.  But  it  is 
to  be  hoped  that  the  union  of  the  two  currents  will 
achieve  more  than  the  repulse  of  the  enemy  at  the 
border,  that  it  will  be  strong  enough  to  initiate  a 
new  creative  period  of  Russian  evolution,  free  from 
the  limitations  of  Oriental  lethargy  and  at  the  same 


30        SELF-GOVERNMENT   IN    RUSSIA 

time  true  to  the  cast  of  originality  impressed  by 
history  on  the  Russian  mind. 

However,  it  is  the  great  creative  movement  of 
the  'sixties  which  dominates  the  second  half  of  the 
nineteenth  century  in  Russia,  and  in  order  to  esti- 
mate its  real  worth  let  us  examine  somewhat  more 
closely  one  of  its  most  momentous  sides — the 
organisation  of  Self-government. 


CHAPTER  II 
THE   ORGANISATION   OF   SELF-GOVERNMENT 

THE  growth  of  Russian  society  as  a  body 
distinct  from  the  State  is  best  illustrated  by 
the  stages  in  the  formation  of  self-government. 
It  is  impossible  to  separate  neatly  and  completely 
the  affairs  of  central  and  local  administration, 
the  machinery  of  the  State  and  the  organisation  of 
social  forces  concerned  with  political  problems. 
But  in  describing  the  structure  of  a  nation  it  is 
possible  and  desirable  to  mark  contrasts  rather 
sharply  and  to  avoid  the  confusion  and  compromises 
which  exist  in  reality. 

We  need  not  go  back  to  origins  in  our  survey. 
Let  us  look  at  the  social  organisation  of  Muscovy 
in  the  sixteenth  century,  when  the  grand  dukes 
had  "  collected  "  the  scattered  principalities  of  Great 
Russia,  shaken  off  the  yoke  of  the  Volga  Khans 
and  assumed  the  title  of  Tsars  in  token  of  their 
full  and  independent  sovereignty.  The  situation 
was  governed  by  the  constant  struggle  of  this  new 
power  against  the  incursions  of  the  Tartars  over 

31 


32        SELF-GOVERNMENT   IN   RUSSIA 

the  southern  steppes  and  the  wars  with  Poland  and 
Sweden  in  the  west.  Muscovy  was  like  a  besieged 
fortress  slowly  extending  the  circuit  of  its  walls  and 
forts,  gaining  ground  against  the  horsemen  of  the 
steppe  or  stemming  their  terrible  invasions,  with  a 
garrison  harassed  and  decimated  by  ceaseless  cam- 
paigns, and  yet  advancing  on  the  whole  like  a 
slowly  rising  tide.  In  order  to  stand  that  sort  of 
life  the  whole  population  had  to  be  registered  and 
called  up  for  compulsory  service,  some  in  the 
"  regiments "  on  the  frontiers,  some  for  siege 
defence  in  the  supporting  towns,  the  majority  in 
the  fields  for  the  purpose  of  providing  the  armies 
and  the  administration  with  the  necessaries  of  life. 

The  landed  gentry  in  its  hierarchical  order  was 
the  mainstay  of  that  organisation.  It  formed  the 
class  of  "  serving  men  "  proper,  and  was  distributed 
over  the  land  on  regimental  and  garrison  duties 
under  the  liability  of  being  called  up  to  mobilise 
and  to  meet  eventual  attacks  on  various  fronts. 
Every  knight  of  this  array  came  up  for  active  service 
with  a  retinue  of  esquires  and  foot  followers  accord- 
ing to  a  settled  scheme  and  in  proportion  to  the 
amount  of  landed  estate  of  which  he  was  enfeoffed  in 
military  tenure.  The  numbers  of  these  unwieldy 
hosts  were  large,  and  testified  to  the  importance 
attached  to  this  primary  duty  of  "  serving  "  the 


ORGANISATION  OF  SELF-GOVERNMENT    33 

Tsar  and  the  country.  A  trustworthy  chronicle 
tells  us  that  in  1581,  when  the  Hungarian  king  of 
Poland,  Stephen  Batory,  laid  siege  to  Pskov,  that 
city  was  held  by  a  garrison  of  30,000  men,  while 
Novgorod  was  occupied  by  another  army  of  40,000, 
and  Tsar  John  the  Terrible  himself  advanced  to 
Staritsa  with  a  host  of  300,000  men  of  all  grades. 
This  was  an  exceptional  effort,  but  the  incursions 
of  the  Crimean  Tartars,  though  they  led  to  smaller 
mobilisations,  were  not  less  troublesome,  as  they 
recurred  from  year  to  year.  Behind  the  serving 
class  stood  the  "  chargeable  "  population  that  had 
to  get  somehow  through  the  economic  pursuits  of 
settled  existence  :  it  was  heavily  assessed  in  various 
ways  and  in  most  cases  assigned  to  the  landed 
serving  men  for  the  payment  of  certain  dues  and 
rents,  besides  bearing  the  charge  of  the  various 
State  taxes  and  rates.  The  secular  clergy  and  the 
monasteries  were  supported  in  a  similar  way  by 
chargeable  groups,  and  it  was  only  in  the  towns 
and  in  the  north-east  in  the  provinces  facing 
the  White  Sea  and  the  Ural  Mountains  that  a 
stock  of  chargeable  men  independent  of  superior 
"  serving  "  gentry  still  formed  a  prominent  part  of 
the  population.  The  whole  situation  was  not  unlike 
the  state  of  things  which  obtained  in  England  under 
Athelstan  or  Canute,  when  the  pressure  of  the  Danish 


34        SELF-GOVERNMENT    IN    RUSSIA 

invasions  called  forth  an  immense  burden  of  ser- 
vices and  of  Danegeld  taxation. 

Now  in  the  sixteenth  century  the  various  classes 
of  the  Muscovite  people  had  not  only  to  fight  the 
enemy  and  to  till  the  land,  but  also  to  perform 
various  administrative  functions.  In  the  earlier 
centuries  the  princes  and  their  lieutenants,  who 
ruled  the  land  by  the  help  of  military  followings, 
exacted  from  their  territories  produce  in  kind, 
money  rents  or  fines,  but  did  not  trouble  particularly 
about  the  details  of  justice  and  police,  leaving  these 
very  much  to  the  management  of  local  hundred 
ealdors  and  tithing  men,  or,  as  regards  procedure, 
to  the  judicial  struggle  between  the  parties.  The 
functions  of  government,  as  far  as  exercised  by  the 
"  lieutenants  "  of  the  princes  and  grand  dukes, 
gave  rise  to  "  provender  "  for  these  functionaries — 
this  was  the  chief  aim  of  administration,  while 
popular  welfare  and  justice  came  in  only  for  sub- 
sidiary consideration.  When  exactions  became  in- 
tolerable, complaints  were  made  in  Moscow,  and 
there  ensued  trials  similar  to  the  Roman  actions 
against  governors  "  de  pecuniis  repetundis." 

The  establishment  of  the  Tsars  in  the  sixteenth 
century  led  to  a  more  systematic  treatment  of  the 
problem  and  to  a  better  understanding  of  the  inti- 
mate connection  between  the  interests  of  the  people 


ORGANISATION  OF  SELF-GOVERNMENT    35 

on  one  hand,  and  the  rights  and  duties  of  government 
on  the  other.  The  constructive  period  marked  by 
the  publication  of  the  two  Codes  of  1497  and  1550, 
and  by  the  policy  of  John  the  Terrible,  present  an 
interesting  attempt  at  a  settlement  of  administra- 
tive problems.  The  "  provender  "  system  was  given 
up :  that  meant  that  the  Moscow  government 
ceased  to  regard  the  office  of  a  provincial  lieutenant 
as  a  kind  of  estate,  from  which  he  was  to 
draw  income  on  the  condition  of  providing  certain 
supplies  for  the  central  authority  and  performing 
in  a  perfunctory  manner  certain  functions  of 
haute  justice  or  police.  It  took  up  the  point  of 
view  that  the  local  administration  of  law  and  order 
in  the  provinces  concerned  the  State,  which  ought 
to  assume  direct  control  over  it. 

This  control,  however,  was  not  exercised  by 
means  of  hierarchical  centralisation.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  various  local  groups  were  called  upon 
to  act  on  their  own  accord  for  the  purpose  of 
solving  the  different  problems  at  hand.  The  landed 
gentry,  for  one,  had  to  meet  in  the  garrison  centres 
and  to  elect  assessment  officers  and  town  com- 
manders, who  had  not  only  to  arrange  the  reparti- 
tion of  service  between  the  members  of  the  cor- 
poration, but  to  watch  over  their  economic  interests, 
to  provide  guardians  for  minors,  to  approach  the 


36        SELF-GOVERNMENT    IN    RUSSIA 

Moscow  authorities  with  complaints  and  petitions, 
etc.  Thus  the  serving  gentry  of  each  province  was 
consolidated  into  a  kind  of  county  corporation, 
the  members  of  which  were  bound  to  stand  pledge 
for  each  other  in  the  performance  of  their  duties 
and  to  provide  security  for  the  good  behaviour  and 
efficiency  of  their  elective  officers.  Another  set  of 
groups  was  formed  for  the  pursuit  and  extermina- 
tion of  highwaymen  and  burglars — the  district  was 
called  guba,  a  term  derived  from  the  putting 
to  death  of  habitual  criminals.  The  elder  of  this 
police  district  was  elected  by  an  assembly  drawn 
from  all  classes  of  the  population — the  "  charge- 
able "  men  and  the  clergy  taking  part  in  the  election 
by  the  side  of  the  gentry.  Thirdly,  the  legal 
procedure  under  the  new  Codes  was  generally 
remodelled  by  the  introduction  of  jurors  or  sworn 
assessors,  who  had  to  watch  over  the  proper  conduct 
of  trials  and  to  protect  the  parties  against  arbitrary 
decisions  of  the  magistrates.  Fourthly,  in  fiscal 
administration  we  find  two  sets  of  officers  elected 
by  the  local  districts,  hundred  ealdors  and  tithing 
men,  who  had  to  collect  direct  taxes  and  dues,  and 
sworn  collectors  in  charge  of  custom  duties,  public- 
house  payments  and  the  like.  As  you  see,  the  life 
of  the  Muscovite  population  in  the  sixteenth  century 
was  supervised  by  a  network  of  heterogeneous 


ORGANISATION  OF  SELF-GOVERNMENT    37 

offices  to  which  must  be  added  the  parishes  and 
other  ecclesiastical  districts.  One  common  feature 
of  these  institutions  was  their  tendency  to  make  use 
of  local  grouping  and  of  elective  machinery  in  order 
to  carry  on  political  functions  of  the  State  :  the 
concerns  of  the  communities  themselves  were  left 
to  a  great  extent  to  take  care  of  themselves.  Un- 
doubtedly, even  such  parasitical  treatment  of  the 
local  groups  by  the  State  had  some  bearing  on  the 
growth  of  autonomous  local  and  provincial  bodies, 
and  we  find  that,  especially  in  the  beginning,  towns 
and  districts  are  keen  to  obtain  grants  of  electoral 
franchises.  But  the  working  of  the  administrative 
network  was  soon  felt  to  be  rather  a  burden  than 
a  privilege.  It  entailed  a  tremendous  amount  of 
compulsory  drudgery  on  the  part  of  elective  officers, 
who  received  no  regular  pay  and  suffered  greatly 
in  the  management  of  their  private  affairs.  In 
difficult  times  and  in  exposed  places  the  duties 
became  very  irksome  and  were  seldom  transacted 
with  honesty  and  efficiency.  It  is  not  rare  to  find 
that  localities  petition  for  a  return  to  the  regime  of 
appointed  lieutenants. 

This  state  of  affairs  explains  why  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  during  the  troubles  which  followed 
the  extinction  of  the  direct  descendants  of  Rurik, 
and  in  the  course  of  the  reconstruction  of  the  State 


38        SELF-GOVERNMENT   IN    RUSSIA 

under  the  early  Romanoffs,  the  elective  system 
breaks  down  and  gives  way  to  centralised  adminis- 
tration by  commanders  under  the  supervision  of 
departments  established  in  Moscow.  And  yet  the 
element  of  local  self-government  lingered  tena- 
ciously in  the  household  affairs  of  the  social  classes. 
The  landed  gentry  formed  cohesive  groups  according 
to  regimental  and  garrison  centres,  and  as  for  the 
peasantry,  while  it  lapsed  more  and  more  into  a 
servile  dependence  upon  the  landlords,  its  village 
communities  became  more  and  more  consolidated 
into  bodies  responsible  for  taxes  and  labour  services 
to  the  State  as  well  as  to  the  squires,  and  exercising 
control  over  the  distribution  and  cultivation  of  the 
soil.  This  undercurrent  of  economic  life  explains 
why  local  self-government,  which  to  all  appearance 
was  dead  in  the  seventeenth  century,  reappears 
again  on  familiar  lines  in  the  reign  of  Peter  the 
Great.  In  his  prodigious  efforts  to  turn  the  current 
of  Russian  development  he  came  to  feel  keenly 
the  need  of  an  administrative  reform.  There  is  a 
story  how  after  a  banquet  Prince  James  Dolgoruky, 
one  of  the  most  trusty  and  courageous  of  Peter's 
satellites,  reproached  the  Tsar  with  having  striven 
merely  after  military  glory  and  with  having  done 
very  little  for  legislation.  The  taunt  is  said  to  have 
been  keenly  felt  by  Peter.  In  any  case,  the  last 


ORGANISATION  OF  SELF-GOVERNMENT    39 

years  of  his  reign  were  devoted  mainly  to  experi- 
ments in  administrative  changes.  Swedish  and 
German  practices  were  borrowed  wholesale  and  a 
number  of  boards  and  offices  were  created  and 
remanipulated  again  and  again.  It  would  be 
confusing  and  unprofitable  to  trace  the  details  and 
fluctuations  of  the  provincial  reforms  of  1699,  1708 
and  1719,  but  a  few  main  points  which  have  stood 
the  test  of  time  must  be  mentioned.  The  governors 
became  prefects  with  widely  extended  powers  derived 
from  their  position  as  the  representatives  of  the 
central  authority.  It  is  curious  to  note  that  Peter 
himself  tried  hard  to  make  the  governor  a  primus 
inter  pares,  but  the  natural  evolution  of  affairs 
was  stronger  than  his  mighty  will.  The  attempt  to 
introduce  collegiate  institutions  in  fiscal  and  in 
judicial  administration  was  not  wholly  lost  to  the 
future,  however,  and  we  find  such  colleges  right  down 
to  our  own  time,  in  the  shape  of  boards,  watching 
over  the  legality  and  general  policy  of  the  provincial 
bureaucrats.  Yet  another  characteristic  trait  of 
Peter's  organisation  is  the  consciousness  that  the 
economic  welfare  of  the  people  is  necessary  for 
the  might  of  the  State,  and  that  economic  progress 
must  be  produced  by  the  efforts  of  the  population 
and  not  only  by  order  of  the  rulers.  Hence  attempts 
to  create  and  encourage  local  self-government.  In 


40        SELF-GOVERNMENT    IN    RUSSIA 

the  country  the  squires  were  called  together  to 
help  and  to  control  the  military  administration  of 
the  districts,  and  committees  were  formed  by  the 
gentry  to  take  care  of  financial  matters.  As  a 
parallel  to  this  arrangement  in  the  country,  the 
towns  were  granted  municipal  government,  entrusted 
to  the  well-to-do  merchant  class,  the  so-called  first 
guild.  These  experiments  did  not  come  off  very  well 
because  of  the  lack  of  suitable  men  and  of  proper 
training,  but  their  tendency  is  full  of  meaning.  We 
find  a  traditional  alliance  between  autocracy  and 
the  class  of  the  squires,  from  which  military  and 
civil  officers  were  drawn,  and  we  notice  the  timid 
beginnings  of  municipal  life.  These  facts  are 
important  because  they  help  us  to  understand  the 
evolutionary  character  of  Peter's  reform,  which  for 
the  superficial  observer  seems  a  violent  and  miracu- 
lous cataclysm.  They  also  help  to  bridge  the  gap 
between  Muscovite  organisation  and  the  reformed 
Russia  of  Peter  and  Catherine,  and,  as  we  shall  see, 
the  Russia  of  our  own  times. 

The  principal  fact  to  be  noticed  during  the 
reigns  of  the  immediate  successors  of  Peter  is  that 
the  military  cohesion  and  discipline  imposed  on  the 
gentry  gradually  relaxed.  This  was  produced  not 
only  by  the  natural  reaction  against  the  tremendous 
strain  of  the  reform  period,  but  also  by  the  develop- 


ORGANISATION  OF  SELF-GOVERNMENT    41 

ment  of  material  resources  and  business  tendencies. 
The  landowning  officers'  class  began  to  turn  its 
attention  more  and  more  to  the  cultivation  of  its 
estates,  and  it  grew  tired  of  the  constant  service 
and  drill  which  had  formed  its  chief  occupation  for 
centuries. 

In  the  reigns  of  the  Empresses  Anna  and  Elizabeth 
the  burdens  placed  on  the  squires  were  lightened 
and  their  privileges  accentuated.  Peter  III,  the 
half-witted  husband  of  Catherine  II,  proclaimed  in 
1762  that  "  gentlemen "  were  free  to  serve  the 
State  or  not  to  serve,  according  to  their  wishes. 
This  Ukase  marks  the  transition  from  the  status 
of  the  gentry,  as  an  order  of  hereditary  officers 
endowed  with  land,  to  that  of  a  class  of  privileged 
landowners  on  whose  support  the  Empire  depended 
indirectly,  but  whose  chief  occupations  were  not 
military  but  economic.  The  possibility  of  such  a 
change  of  attitude  testified  to  a  very  important 
result :  the  leading  groups  of  the  nation  began  to 
acquire  a  capacity  for  independent  existence  and 
independent  pursuits  which  they  were  unable  to 
manifest  during  the  desperate  struggles  of  the 
preceding  centuries.  The  squires  did  not  cease  to 
send  their  sons  to  the  army  or  to  the  civil  service, 
but  they  were  not  legally  bound  to  do  so  or  to  keep 
them  in  service  from  the  age  of  15  to  that  of  60. 


42        SELF-GOVERNMENT   IN    RUSSIA 

The  management  of  estates  became  their  chief 
interest,  the  estate  itself  ceased  to  be  a  conditional 
fee  and  was  considered  full  property,  while  its 
cultivators  lapsed  from  the  standing  of  citizens 
attached  to  the  soil  under  the  sway  of  an  officer, 
to  that  of  villains  belonging  to  a  master. 

Catherine  IFs  legislation  drew  the  consequences 
from  the  new  situation.  In  1775  the  gentry  was 
definitely  organised  for  the  purpose  of  provincial 
government,  and  in  1785  it  was  formed  into  a  close 
hereditary  order  and  endowed  with  corporative 
rights.  These  measures  present  two  aspects  of  the 
same  situation  and  may  be  treated  together. 
Provincial  government  was  reorganised  on  the 
principle  of  the  joint  action  of  Crown  officials 
and  of  elected  representatives  of  the  population. 
Provinces  and  districts  were  formed  on  lines  which 
have  more  or  less  endured  up  to  now  :  the  pro- 
vince was  assigned  a  territory  with  approximately 
300-400,000  heads  of  population,  and  the  district 
(uyezd)  one  with  30,000.  Governors  remained  at 
the  heads  of  provinces  and  captains  (ispravniks) 
exercised  similar  functions  in  a  greatly  limited 
manner  in  the  district.  Judicial  authority  was 
separated  from  administration  and  from  fiscal 
affairs.  The  main  point  was  that  in  all  the  tribunals 
and  collegiate  institutions  assessors  elected  by  the 


ORGANISATION  OF  SELF-GOVERNMENT    43 

gentry  and,  in  the  lower  instances,  also  by  mer- 
chants or  craft  guilds  and  by  the  free  peasantry, 
were  called  upon  to  play  a  prominent  part.  The 
gentry  in  particular  was  organised  in  corporations 
according  to  provinces.  Its  members  met  once  in 
three  years  to  elect  marshals  and  the  assessors  of 
different  courts,  to  administer  the  finances  of  the 
corporation,  to  audit  accounts,  to  receive  reports, 
to  draw  up  petitions  and  statements  of  claims,  etc. 
The  arrangement  corresponded  to  a  theory  borrowed 
from  Montesquieu's  "  Esprit  des  Lois,"  of  which 
Catherine  was  a  great  admirer  :  it  was  thought 
to  embody  the  pouvoir  intermediate  of  a  truly 
monarchical  government.  The  rule  of  the  landed 
aristocracy  was  supposed  to  ensure  legality,  order 
and  public  spirit.  It  was  to  be  supplemented  by  a 
high  standard  of  honour  and  full  legal  protection 
against  arbitrary  acts.  According  to  the  Charter 
of  1785,  a  "  gentleman  "  could  not  be  deprived  of 
any  personal  rights  unless  by  judgment  in  a  court 
where  his  peers  were  assessors.  Thus  the  legislation 
of  Catherine  undoubtedly  reflects  rays  falling  from 
Western  sources  of  light.  This  reform  had  a  con- 
siderable amount  of  success :  it  was  put  into 
practice  on  a  soil  well  prepared  for  the  rule  of  a 
squirearchy  by  previous  history.  The  provincial 
corporations  of  the  gentry  became  influential  and 


44       SELF-GOVERNMENT    IN    RUSSIA 

active  bodies ;  the  marshals  and  other  delegates 
exercised  a  great  deal  of  authority,  and  their  posts 
were  coveted  by  ambitious  members  of  county 
society. 

There  were  shady  sides,  however,  to  this  aristo- 
cratic regime.  It  was  a  class  rule  and  exhibited 
all  the  defects  of  class  rule  :  jobbery,  corruption, 
arrogance,  petty  quarrels,  narrow  selfishness.  An 
amusing  picture  of  the  world  of  employees  in  a 
small  provincial  centre  stirred  up  by  the  supposed 
arrival  of  a  revising  officer  from  St.  Petersburg 
is  presented  by  Gogol  in  his  comedy  "  The  Re- 
viser." It  is  a  caricature,  but  a  brilliant  one :  it 
hits  off  in  a  humorous  manner  the  weaknesses  of 
the  original.  The  scene  is  laid  in  a  town  of 
Nicholas  I's  time — sometime  about  1830,  but  it 
is  characteristic  of  a  life  which  sprang  up  under 
the  operation  of  Catherine's  legislation.  A  yet 
more  significant  and  obnoxious  feature  of  the 
system  consisted  in  the  debasement  of  the  peasan- 
try. In  spite  of  their  surrender  to  the  exploit- 
ation of  the  military  class  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  the  peasants  never  ceased  to  consider 
themselves  free  citizens  of  the  State,  subject  to 
landlords  because  the  landlords  were  subject  to 
military  burdens.  Pososhkov,  a  contemporary  of 
Peter  the  Great,  expressed  this  view  in  emphatic 


ORGANISATION  OF  SELF-GOVERNMENT    45 

words  :  "  The  peasants  do  not  in  truth  belong  to 
the  squires,  they  are  temporarily  entrusted  to  their 
rule,  their  only  master  is  the  Tsar."  When 
eighteenth-century  legislation  relaxed  the  hold  of 
the  State  over  the  squires,  when  Peter  III  pro- 
claimed the  "  freedom  "  of  the  gentry  from  com- 
pulsory service,  the  peasants  began  to  entertain 
the  hope  that  their  own  bondage  would  be  corre- 
spondingly dissolved.  This  called  forth  one  rising 
after  the  other,  and,  in  spite  of  cruel  disappoint- 
ments, the  accession  of  every  new  emperor  was 
greeted  by  the  revival  of  such  hopes.  In  reality, 
however,  the  economic  turn  imparted  to  the  class 
of  the  squires  in  the  course  of  the  eighteenth  century 
led  to  the  enslaving  of  the  peasant,  to  the  oblitera- 
tion of  the  public  law  features  which  had  charac- 
terised the  older  arrangement.  Though  Catherine  II 
was  a  disciple  of  French  philosophers  and  loved  to 
speculate  on  liberal  and  humanitarian  theories,  her 
government  did  not  carry  out  any  of  the  noble 
ideas  of  emancipation  in  which  she  occasionally 
indulged  in  her  writings.  On  the  contrary,  the  lot 
of  the  "  serfs  "  became  more  and  more  gloomy, 
more  and  more  similar  to  the  condition  of  domesti- 
cated animals.  In  this  way  the  class  self-government 
instituted  to  supplement  and  to  support  official 
bureaucracy  was  made  to  rest  heavily  on  a  founda- 


46        SELF-GOVERNMENT    IN    RUSSIA 

tion  of  serfdom.  Here  again  you  may  turn  for  an 
illustration  of  the  social  results  to  a  masterpiece  of 
Gogol,  to  his  novel  "  Dead  Souls  "  ;  it  describes  the 
journey  across  Russia  of  an  adventurer  who  has 
hit  on  the  expedient  of  building  up  a  fictitious 
"  fortune  in  souls,"  that  is  in  serfs,  by  concluding 
agreements  with  squires  as  to  the  purchase  of  their 
dead  dependents.  This  original  device  gives  the 
great  humorist  an  opportunity  for  passing  in  review 
all  sorts  of  quaint  types  of  Russian  country  society. 
As  for  the  tragic  aspect  of  the  situation,  Tur- 
geneffs  Tales  of  a  sportsman  give  a  better  insight 
than  any  dry  statements  of  fact.  The  books 
referred  to  belong  to  a  later  age,  but  the  laws  of 
serfdom  of  which  they  treat,  in  spite  of  some 
legislative  "  nibbling,"  were  not  materially  different 
at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  and  towards 
the  middle  of  the  nineteenth. 

And  yet  great  changes  were  slowly  preparing 
behind  the  scenes.  To  begin  with,  the  very  trans- 
formation of  the  military  order  into  planters 
testified  to  the  dependence  of  the  whole  arrange- 
ment on  economic  evolution.  And  that  process  of 
economic  evolution  was  rapidly  reaching  a  stage 
in  which  serf  labour  was  becoming  unproductive 
and  unsuitable  to  the  requirements  of  the  market. 
In  the  old  days  natural  husbandry  settlements  in 


ORGANISATION  OF  SELF-GOVERNMENT    47 

the  centre  and  an  extension  of  aristocratic  protection 
and  capital  to  the  colonisation  fringe  were  the  main 
features  of  the  Russian  agricultural  system.  In 
the  course  of  the  nineteenth  century  new  factors 
developed  with  increasing  force :  industry  and 
commerce  were  making  progress  and  creating  new 
centres  of  attraction  for  labour  and  new  markets 
for  produce.  When  the  railways  came  in,  the  ten- 
dency towards  mobilisation  acquired  an  irresistible 
impetus,  but  even  before  that  time  the  framework  of 
municipal  institutions  provided  by  Catherine  II's 
Town  Charter  of  1785  began  gradually  to  fill  up  with 
social  groups  of  merchants,  clerks,  craftsmen  and 
workmen,  which  in  former  centuries  had  represented 
almost  negligible  quantities.  In  the  rural  districts 
themselves  the  black-soil  regions  of  the  south  and 
south-east  stood  in  want  of  hired  labour,  while  the 
congested  districts  in  the  centre  and  in  the  north 
spent  their  working  strength  in  an  unproductive 
routine  fostered  by  artificial  settlement  restrictions. 
That  means  that  the  plantation  system  had  not 
even  the  excuse  of  conformity  to  geographical  con- 
ditions. As  a  matter  of  fact,  already  in  the  period  of 
serfdom  the  working  population  began  to  be  exploited 
more  and  more  by  means  of  cash  rents  (obrok)  in- 
stead of  labour  services  (barstchina) .  Thus  even 
apart  from  humanitarian  tendencies  economic  changes 


48        SELF-GOVERNMENT    IN    RUSSIA 

threatened  the  institution  of  serfdom  at  a  time 
when  it  seemed  to  have  reached  its  most  complete 
manifestation.  One  of  the  influential  members  of 
Nicholas  I's  committees  dealing  with  the  problem 
of  serfdom,  Admiral  Mordvinoff,  maintained  that 
serfdom  was  a  product  of  economic  evolution  and 
would  disappear  of  itself  when  its  economic  pre- 
mises had  been  removed  :  this  argument  cut  both 
ways  :  having  been  formulated  for  the  retention  of 
serfdom  it  was  used,  later  on,  for  its  abolition. 
Yet  it  is  very  doubtful  whether  any  amount  of 
economic  reasoning  would  have  overcome  the 
resistance  of  the  vested  interests  rooted  in  villainage  : 
these  interests  were  too  numerous  and  too  power- 
fully represented  in  the  summit  of  the  State. 
Emancipation  was  eventually  brought  about  by 
the  combined  pressure  of  material  facts  and  of 
the  irresistible  movement  of  public  opinion  on 
humanitarian  grounds.  Political  idealism  played 
a  most  conspicuous  part  in  the  process.  It  in- 
spired bitter  criticism  and  acts  of  renunciation 
like  those  of  the  Grand  Duchess  Helene  Paulovna, 
Tsar  Nicholas'  sister-in-law,  to  whom  belongs  the 
glory  of  opening  the  career  of  emancipation  by 
liberating  the  serfs  of  her  estate  of  Karlovka. 
The  important  point  is  that  civilised  society  in 
Russia  became  gradually  permeated  by  the  con- 


ORGANISATION  OF  SELF-GOVERNMENT    49 

viction  that  serfdom  was  not  only  iniquitous  but 
dangerous,  that  it  sapped  the  strength  of  the  nation 
and  prevented  its  normal  growth.  The  pioneers 
in  the  campaign  against  serfdom  were  not  only 
professors  and  men  of  letters,  but  also  country 
gentlemen  who  had  brought  back  from  the  Univer- 
sities an  untiring  zeal  for  freedom  and  progress. 
In  these  circles  the  study  of  Western  history  and 
culture  formed  a  powerful  ferment  for  comparison 
and  for  the  framing  of  ideals.  It  is  significant  that 
according  to  J.  Aksakoff's  testimony  it  was  not  by 
the  Slavophiles  but  by  "  Western  "  liberals  that  the 
first  plans  for  effecting  the  emancipation  of  the 
peasants  with  their  land  allotments  were  elaborated. 
The  abolitionist  movement  found  efficient  sup- 
porters in  the  ranks  of  Government  officials. 

General  Rostovtseff,  the  first  president  of  the 
"  Committee  of  Redaction "  which  drafted  the 
emancipation  statute — an  excitable  and  well- 
meaning  man — gave  invaluable  help  by  inter- 
preting the  trend  of  public  opinion  to  the  Tsar. 
Nicholas  Milutine,  Assistant  Minister  of  the  Interior 
under  Alexander  II,  was  its  most  energetic  and 
successful  promoter  in  the  memorable  years  1859- 
1861.  Men  of  such  enlightened  opinions  were  not 
in  the  majority  in  the  upper  classes  of  society  even 
in  those  eventful  years.  Sinister  selfishness  did 


50        SELF-GOVERNMENT   IN    RUSSIA 

assert  itself  in  many  ways  and  hampered  very 
materially  the  work  of  emancipation.  But  the 
history  of  the  years  after  the  Crimean  war  presents 
a  remarkable  illustration  of  the  explosive  force  of 
ideas.  The  opponents  of  the  contemplated  reforms 
were  unable  to  come  out  into  the  open  and  to  chal- 
lenge their  aggressors  frankly  and  boldly  :  they  had 
to  seek  advantages  on  side  issues  and  to  yield  on 
questions  of  principle.  In  these  circumstances  the 
political  consciousness  of  the  State  as  embodied  in 
Emperor  Alexander  II  and  in  the  President  of  the 
Grand  Committee,  Grand  Duke  Constantine  Nikola- 
yevitch,  gave  its  casting  vote  against  the  planters 
and  carried  the  emancipation  of  23  millions  of  serfs, 
one-third  of  the  population  of  Russia. 

The  above  remarks  on  the  emancipation  of  the 
serfs  are  not  a  digression  from  our  main  subject, 
as  might  seem  at  first  glance.  They  are  the  neces- 
sary introduction  to  an  account  of  the  reform  of 
provincial  government  which  took  place  in  1864. 
It  did  not  require  great  acumen  to  perceive  that 
when  the  peasants  were  set  free  and  a  basis  for 
rural  economy  was  sought  in  free  agreement  instead 
of  compulsory  service,  the  position  of  the  landed 
gentry  had  to  be  resettled  in  every  respect  and  the 
new  citizens  had  to  be  provided  with  a  machinery 
of  public  government  instead  of  the  class  rule  of 


ORGANISATION  OF  SELF-GOVERNMENT    51 

the  ancient  regime.  The  realisation  of  this  truth  is 
expressed  on  some  occasions  before  emancipation. 
This  was  done  in  a  remarkable  manner  in  a  scheme 
of  reform  elaborated  in  view  of  the  emancipation  by 
the  Committee  of  the  province  of  Tver  and  presented 
in  Petersburg  by  the  marshal  of  the  gentry,  A.  M. 
Unkovsky,  and  other  delegates.  They  called  atten- 
tion to  the  fact  that  the  social  regime  based  on  serf- 
dom, though  absolutely  wrong,  contained  some 
positive  traits  :  it  enabled  the  squires  to  assist  the 
Government  in  the  performance  of  its  political 
duties  and  it  operated  as  a  check  on  the  arbitrary 
methods  of  Crown  officials — the  tchinovniks.  Once 
this  check  was  removed,  there  would  be  imminent 
danger  that  the  people  would  fall  into  subjection 
to  bureaucracy  instead  of  being  subjected  to  its 
former  masters — the  landlords.  One  could  not 
expect  the  Crown  officials  to  abstain  from  oppres- 
sion, corruption  and  arbitrary  violence,  because  the 
whole  fabric  of  society  had  been  vitiated  by  the 
spirit  and  habits  of  serfdom.  An  efficient  antidote 
could  truly  be  found  in  self-government,  and  the 
Tver  Committee  sketched  progressive  plans  of 
reform,  drawing  its  chief  arguments  from  the  history 
and  the  political  science  of  Western  Europe,  which, 
to  their  minds,  had  conclusively  proved  that 
historical  evolution  leads  everywhere  towards  the 


52        SELF-GOVERNMENT    IN    RUSSIA 

gradual  ascent  of  lower  classes  and  the  abolition 
of  privileges.  Nevertheless  the  Committee  found 
it  necessary  to  pave  the  way  towards  democratic 
self-government  in  which  all  classes  should  take 
equal  shares,  by  a  preliminary  stage  characterised 
by  a  preponderance  of  the  aristocratic  element. 
In  a  less  finished  and  less  theoretical  form,  the 
conviction  that  emancipation  was  the  first  step 
towards  a  series  of  other  changes,  was  widely 
prevalent  in  society.  Rostovtseff,  the  president  of 
the  first  central  committee  for  drafting  the  plan  of 
emancipation,  wrote  to  the  Emperor  on  October  23, 
1859 :  "  Right  through  the  various  statements 
of  the  delegates  runs  one  idea  shared  by  all, 
namely,  the  condemnation  of  the  unfortunate 
arrangement  of  local  government  and  of  the  courts 
and  their  activity — arbitrary,  encroaching,  secret 
and  secure  against  discovery.  All  are  convinced 
that  under  such  an  arrangement  of  the  judiciary 
and  police  neither  the  welfare  of  the  landowners  nor 
that  oi  the  peasants  can  be  ensured  and  safe- 
guarded." 

In  fact,  the  beginning  of  local  government  re- 
form had  to  be  made  in  connection  with  the  very 
statute  of  emancipation,  because  an  administra- 
tive machinery  had  to  be  set  up  to  replace  the 
authority  of  the  lords  abolished  by  the  statute. 


ORGANISATION  OF  SELF-GOVERNMENT    53 

Certain  principles  were  laid  down  in  this  respect  in 
1861  and  developed  in  detail  in  1866.  The  main 
point  was  the  organisation  of  the  civil  parish 
(volost)  for  administrative  and  judiciary  purposes. 
This  unit  was  not  a  new  one  :  it  had  existed  all 
through  ancient  Russia  at  a  time  when  the  free 
peasantry  had  not  yet  been  subjected  to  secular 
and  ecclesiastical  lords.  It  lingered  on  in  the  North 
and  East,  where  the  black,  i.e.  the  free,  population 
had  kept  its  ground.  It  was  resorted  to  on  the 
domains  of  the  Imperial  family  and  of  the  State  in 
the  reigns  of  Paul  and  of  Nicholas  I. 

In  the  'sixties  the  civil  parish,  consisting  of 
several  neighbouring  villages  with  a  normal  area 
formed  by  a  radius  of  some  9  miles  and  a  population 
ranging  from  some  700  to  5000,  was  used  as  the 
pivot  of  local  administration  in  rural  districts. 

i.  Its  institutions  were :  (i)  an  assembly  of 
representatives  of  the  component  villages  for  the 
principal  purpose  of  electing  the  officers  of  the 
volost ;  (ii)  an  executive  consisting  of  a  volost  elder, 
assessors  and  a  parish  clerk ;  and  (iii)  a  court  with 
elective  judges.  These  are  the  three  parts  of  the 
volost  machinery.  There  was  a  good  deal  of  election, 
as  you  see,  and  those  who  framed  the  arrangement 
meant  it  undoubtedly  to  form  the  basis  of  popular 
self-government.  It  was,  however,  vitiated  by 


54       SELF-GOVERNMENT    IN    RUSSIA 

substantial  drawbacks  which  made  themselves 
felt  from  the  very  beginning.  The  organisation 
came  into  being  as  an  institution  devised  for  a 
particular  class  and  designed  to  keep  up  the  isolation 
of  the  latter  from  the  rest  of  the  people.  The  civil 
parish  is  exclusively  composed  of  members  belonging 
to  the  peasant  order  or  of  persons  of  other  orders 
who  have  joined  the  volost  under  special  conditions  : 
the  gentry,  the  clergy,  merchants,  members  of 
liberal  professions  do  not  participate  in  its  work, 
although  their  interests  as  landowners  or  occu- 
piers of  rural  holdings  are  materially  affected 
by  it. 

2.  As  regards  the  peasant  class  itself,  the  unit 
which   displays   the   greatest   vitality   is   not   the 
volost,    but    the    township    or    village.      Business 
transactions,  questions  as  to  education,  etc.,  are 
usually  settled  by  the  officers  and  the  assembly  of 
the    township,    especially   in    districts   where   the 
communal  system  still  prevails.    Yet  the  township 
unit  is  considered  in  the  light  of  a  private  law 
corporation,  and  it  is  the  volost  which  plays  the 
part  of  the  lowest  administrative  subdivision. 

3.  While  the  volost  is  thus  not  very  active  for 
the  promotion  of  its  own  interests,  it  is  overburdened 
with  tasks  of  police  and  finance  imposed  on  it  by 
the  Government,  with  the  result  that  it  represents 


ORGANISATION  OF  SELF-GOVERNMENT    55 

everything  irksome  and  onerous  in  rural  practice 
and  that  the  best  men  try  in  every  way  to 
avoid  it. 

4.  The  judicial  activity  of  the  volost  court  is 
confused  and  devoid  of  authority.  The  judges  are 
supposed  to  administer  customary  law,  but  in  truth 
they  are  bewildered  by  the  variety  and  complexity 
of  relations  created  by  the  movement  of  legislation 
and  of  economic  practice,  and  their  jurisdiction  in 
civil  and  petty  criminal  matters  is  at  best  a  kind 
of  shifting  equity  tempered  by  corruption.  The 
clerk  of  the  parish  is  too  often  a  crafty  promoter  of 
the  latter.  Lastly,  this  whole  cumbersome  system 
of  rural  administration  is  under  the  meddlesome 
and  by  no  means  disinterested  supervision  of 
Government  officials  and  of  nominees  of  the  local 
gentry,  who  even  exercise  the  power  to  subject 
the  luckless  parish  officers  to  fines  and  imprison- 
ment. All  these  features  have  proved  a  great 
handicap  in  the  development  of  rural  self-govern- 
ment. 

This  short  sketch  of  peasant  administration 
discloses  the  characteristic  and  unfortunate  dualism 
of  the  reform  legislation  in  the  'sixties.  It  was  a 
compromise  between  liberal  ideals  and  bureaucratic 
limitations :  sometimes  the  latter  actually  suc- 
ceeded in  distorting  the  progressive  intentions  of 


56       SELF-GOVERNMENT    IN    RUSSIA 

the  reformers,  in  most  cases  they  at  least  hampered 
them. 

One  of  the  results  of  the  situation  was  that  while 
the  peasants  were  presented  with  local  self-govern- 
ment of  a  kind,  the  gentry  and  other  upper  classes 
of  rural  districts  were  left  without  any.  Their 
affairs  and  interests  were  diverted  in  the  direction 
of  provincial  institutions.  A  committee  for  the 
reorganisation  of  the  counties  was  created  imme- 
diately after  the  completion  of  the  emancipation 
statute.  It  was  initiated  by  Nicholas  Milutine  with 
a  view  of  endowing  Russia  with  a  network  of 
efficient  self-governing  provinces,  but  it  was  inter- 
cepted at  the  start  by  the  reactionaries,  smarting 
from  the  effects  of  emancipation  and  apprehensive 
of  further  inroads  at  the  hands  of  the  "  revolu- 
tionary "  Milutine.  The  great  reformer  was  tra- 
duced and  ousted  in  a  manner  which  will  be  an 
ever-memorable  example  of  political  ingratitude. 
D.  Valuieff,  a  clever  time-server,  took  his  place, 
and  the  proceedings  were  conducted  in  a  spirit  of 
duplicity  which  deprived  the  provincial  reform  of 
a  great  deal  of  its  significance.  Enough  was 
achieved,  however,  by  the  public  spirit  of  the  age 
to  make  the  Zemstvo  reform  of  1864  a  landmark  in 
the  history  of  Russia. 

The  "  Zemstvo   Statute  "   of  January   i,   1864, 


ORGANISATION  OF  SELF-GOVERNMENT    57 

created  two  sets  of  institutions — assemblies  and 
executive  boards.  Each  district  (uyezd)  elected 
representatives  for  the  district  assembly,  meeting 
once  a  year  for  some  ten  days,  according  to  a 
certain  system  which  will  be  described  presently, 
and  an  executive  board  (uprava)  transacting 
business  under  the  direction  and  the  supervision  of 
the  assembly  in  the  course  of  the  year.  Similarly, 
an  assembly  and  a  board  acted  in  the  province  or 
government  comprising  several  districts,  the  mem- 
bers of  the  assembly  in  this  case  being  elected 
at  the  district  meetings.  The  electoral  system  in 
the  district,  from  which  all  the  authorities  were 
derived  either  directly  or  indirectly,  was  character- 
ised by  high  franchise  qualifications  and  by  the 
splitting  up  of  the  electorate  into  colleges.  Of  these 
there  were  three  :  the  first  was  composed  of  land- 
owners possessed  of  real  estate  of  the  value  of 
15,000  Rb.  (about  £1500  at  the  rate  of  exchange 
before  the  war),  or  of  owners  of  factories  and  other 
business  undertakings  of  a  similar  value  or  of 
6000  Rb.  yearly  turnover.  Smaller  owners  were 
not  disenfranchised,  but  had  to  club  together  and 
meet  previously  in  order  to  elect  representatives 
according  to  the  above  rates.  The  second  college 
comprised  townspeople  with  analogous  franchise 
qualifications.  The  third  consisted  of  representa- 


58       SELF-GOVERNMENT   IN    RUSSIA 

lives  of  the  peasantry  by  volosts.  The  economic 
importance  of  the  gentry  in  the  rural  districts 
assured  it  of  a  very  great  share  in  the  ultimate 
electoral  results :  about  43%  of  the  deputies 
in  the  early  Zemstvos  belonged  to  the  gentry  class  ; 
the  peasants  sent  38%,  while  all  other  professions 
were  represented  by  about  18%.  Another  feature 
designed  to  secure  the  predominance  of  the  gentry 
was  the  fact  that  the  assemblies  were  to  be  pre- 
sided over  by  the  provincial  and  district  marshals, 
although  the  executive  boards  were  granted  elective 
chairmen.  It  was  intended  to  restrict  the  Zemstvos 
to  the  management  of  economic  interests,  while 
administrative  affairs  were  to  be  reserved  to 
functionaries  appointed  by  the  Government ;  the 
class  group  of  the  gentry  or  hereditary  noblesse 
retained  corporate  existence  and  the  right  of 
presenting  petitions  as  to  political  questions.  As 
a  matter  of  fact  it  was  impossible  to  draw  a 
definite  line  between  administration  and  economic 
functions,  as  may  be  gathered  even  from  a  simple 
enumeration  of  the  departments  of  Zemstvo  ac- 
tivity :  (i)  imposition  and  collection  of  pro- 
vincial and  district  rates  and  services  in  kind  ; 
(2)  the  management  of  property  belonging  to  the 
Zemstvos  ;  (3)  taking  care  of  a  sufficiency  of  food 
and  other  supplies  and  measures  of  relief  in  case  of 


ORGANISATION  OF  SELF-GOVERNMENT    59 

shortage ;  (4)  the  construction  and  keeping  in 
good  order  of  roads,  canals,  quays  and  other  means 
of  communication ;  (5)  arrangements  as  to  the 
mutual  insurance  of  local  bodies ;  (6)  the  re- 
arrangement of  hospitals,  charity  organisations, 
asylums,  relief  of  the  poor  and  of  the  sick ;  (7) 
measures  of  public  health,  of  veterinary  supervision 
and  treatment ;  (8)  the  prevention  and  suppression 
of  fires  ;  (9)  the  spread  of  popular  education  and 
participation  in  the  management  of  schools  and 
other  institutions  of  enlightenment ;  (10)  assist- 
ance to  industry  and  commerce,  measures  for 
checking  the  ravages  of  insects  and  diseases  of 
plants;  (n)  the  performance  of  obligations  imposed 
on  localities  for  the  benefit  of  the  military  and  civil 
administration,  e.g.  the  provision  of  barracks  or 
the  quartering  of  soldiers. 

To  mention  one  example  of  the  inevitable  over- 
lapping of  attributions — as  regards  popular  educa- 
tion the  Zemstvos  were  invited  to  open  schools,  to 
provide  them  with  equipment,  to  pay  teachers,  in 
fact  to  maintain  the  schools  in  a  state  of  efficiency, 
and  yet  the  appointment  of  the  teachers  and  the 
supervision  of  the  instruction  was  put  in  the  hands 
of  a  school  board  in  which  Crown  officials  and 
representatives  of  the  noblesse  and  of  the  clergy 
were  in  the  majority.  However,  the  saying  that  he 


60        SELF-GOVERNMENT    IN    RUSSIA 

who  pays  the  piper  orders  the  tune  held  good  in 
this  as  in  other  cases.  As  the  Zemstvos  provided 
the  means  they  acquired  the  actual  management 
of  this  important  branch  of  local  administration — 
not  without  much  friction  and  obstruction.  Another 
point  in  which  the  distrust  of  the  Government  as 
regards  the  newly  created  bodies  found  vent  was 
the  absence  of  compulsory  power.  In  all  cases  when 
force  was  required  to  put  by-laws  into  execution, 
to  collect  rates,  to  seize  goods,  etc.,  the  Zemstvos 
could  not  act  by  themselves  but  had  to  apply  for 
help  to  the  general  police,  which  was  often  very 
remiss  in  assisting  the  new  organisations  and  in  any 
case  regarded  their  requirements  as  of  secondary 
importance.  Lastly,  the  acts  of  the  Zemstvos, 
both  as  to  decrees  or  by-laws  and  as  to  appoint- 
ments of  all  kinds,  were  subjected  to  constant  and 
suspicious  supervision  by  governors  and  other 
agents  of  the  Central  Authority ;  when  the  trend 
of  general  policy  pointed  towards  reaction,  as  it  often 
did,  the  Zemstvos  were  hampered  and  harassed 
under  the  slightest  pretexts.  This  was  not  a 
fortunate  situation :  many  strong  liberals  were 
driven  away  from  Zemstvo  work  and  did  not  spare 
bitter  criticism  of  such  incomplete  and  stunted 
institutions. 
Yet  it  would  be  not  only  wrong,  but  absurd  to 


ORGANISATION  OF  SELF-GOVERNMENT    61 

disparage  the  immense  work  achieved  by  the 
Zemstvos  in  an  exceedingly  short  space  of  time. 
The  wonder  is  not  that  they  were  hampered  and 
distracted,  but  that  they  achieved  so  much.  It  is 
not  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  a  new  age  was 
initiated  by  their  activity  in  Russia.  Such  bodies 
as,  for  example,  the  Moscow  provincial  Zemstvo, 
under  the  leadership  of  Dmitry  Shipoff,  would 
have  done  honour  to  any  country,  and  it  is  not 
their  fault  that  they  were  not  able  to  carry  out 
their  plans  in  their  entirety.  An  estimate  of  the 
activity  of  the  Zemstvos  and  of  the  rate  of  their 
progress  may  be  obtained  by  glancing  at  the  move- 
ment of  receipts  and  expenditure  in  the  years 
1865-1912.  In  1865  the  Zemstvo  provinces  started 
with  a  modest  income  of  5  millions  Rb.  In  1912 
it  had  reached  220  millions  in  the  original  thirty- 
four  Zemstvo  provinces  and  250  together  with 
the  receipts  of  the  western  provinces  placed 
under  a  special  regime  :  in  other  words,  the  original 
figure  has  been  multiplied  fifty  times.  As  to  ex- 
penditure, a  considerable  share  has  to  be  assigned 
to  cover  duties  imposed  by  the  State,  e.g.,  the 
construction  of  barracks  or  the  maintenance  of 
prisons.  Productive  Zemstvo  expenditure  develops 
outside  such  necessary,  imposed  payments.  Now, 
in  1871,  43%  of  the  expenditure  budget  could 


62       SELF-GOVERNMENT   IN    RUSSIA 

be  devoted  to  voluntary  requirements,  while  in 
1910  80%  was  allotted  to  them.  The  repartition 
of  expenditure  under  various  heads  is  very  character- 
istic. In  1895  nearly  13^  millions  or  20-5%  were 
contributed  for  the  needs  of  the  central  government ; 
the  service  of  loans  and  the  formation  of  reserve 
capitals  swallowed  somewhat  over  10  millions,  or 
rather  more  than  15  % ;  the  cost  of  Zemstvo 
administration  amounted  to  somewhat  over 
6  millions  (9-5%);  popular  education  was  repre- 
sented by  9-3  millions  (14%) ;  charitable  purposes 
by  i  million  (1-5%)  ;  roads  about  4  millions  (6%)  ; 
medicine  and  sanitation  17-8  millions  (27%)  ; 
veterinary  department  i  million  (1-5%)  ;  measures 
for  economic  assistance  0-7  (i  %)  ;  various  sundries 
1-5  million  (3-5%).  The  same  items  work  out  in 
the  following  manner  in  1912  : — 

Government  requirements  .  10-5  mill.  (5%). 

Zemstvo  administration  .  15!  mill.  (7%). 

Loans  and  reserve  capitals  .  27  mill,  (n  %). 

Roads,  etc.         .          .  15  mill.  (7%). 

Education          .          .  .  66  £  mill.  (30%). 

Charities  and  poor  relief  .  3^  mill.  (1-7%). 

Medicine  and  sanitation  .  57!  mill.  (26%). 

Veterinary  service      .  .  6  mill.  (2-8%). 

Economic  measures    .  .  14  mill.  (6-3%). 


ORGANISATION  OF  SELF-GOVERNMENT    63 

In  the  budget  of  the  six  western  governments 
with  modified  Zemstvo  organisation,  expenditure  on 
schools  and  on  medical  arrangements  figured  in  each 
case  with  7  millions  Rb.,  corresponding  to  23%  of 
the  whole.  We  shall  have  occasion  to  consider  in 
detail  the  remarkable  progress  achieved  by  the 
Zemstvos  in  the  field  of  popular  education,  and  the 
history  of  this  department  may  be  taken  as  typical 
of  the  aspirations  and  methods  of  Russian  self- 
government.  A  reference  to  the  above  tables  will 
show  that  not  less  momentous  progress  was  marked 
by  the  activity  of  the  Zemstvos  in  connection  with 
medical  help  and  sanitation.  Measures  of  economic 
policy  have  been  taken  up  energetically  of  late 
years  by  the  more  progressive  Zemstvos  in  other 
ways:  the  acquisition  of  agricultural  machinery, 
the  spread  of  agronomic  education,  improved 
methods  of  cultivation,  insurance  against  fires  and 
bad  harvests,  etc. 

Particularly  striking  results  have  been  obtained 
by  organising  statistical  work  on  an  extensive  scale. 
A  singular  gap  is  noticeable  under  the  head  of 
poor  relief  and  charities.  The  explanation  of  this 
strange  fact  is  certainly  not  to  be  sought  in  callous 
indifference  for  destitution.  The  charitable  dis- 
position and  the  sensitive  pity  of  the  Russians  is 
proverbial.  The  scanty  column  of  expenditure 


64       SELF-GOVERNMENT   IN    RUSSIA 

under  this  head  is  explained  partly  by  the  lack  of 
a  comprehensive  poor  law  and  partly  by  the  fact 
that  the  burden  of  supporting  the  poor  falls  princi- 
pally on  village  communities  and  on  towns,  while 
the  Church  and  private  individuals  are  very  lavish 
of  alms — an  attitude  condemned  by  political 
economists  but  connected  with  deeply  rooted 
habits  of  mind.  This  is  in  any  case  a  side  of 
Zemstvo  activity  in  which  there  is  evidently  most 
room  for  improvement. 

Taken  as  a  whole,  the  services  rendered  to  Russia 
by  the  Zemstvos  have  been  immense.  The  new 
factor  of  self-government  introduced  into  the  life 
of  the  country  by  the  reforms  of  1864  has  brilliantly 
justified  its  right  to  existence  and  development. 
And  yet  its  very  success  has  called  forth  bitter 
opposition  from  the  forces  of  the  half-defeated  old 
regime.  It  is  my  painful  duty  to  call  attention  to 
the  stages  of  a  campaign  of  persecution  which, 
though  it  has  not  achieved  its  end,  has  materially 
curtailed  the  beneficial  effects  of  the  organisation. 
The  honour  of  carrying  on  the  war  against  the  most 
promising  force  of  modern  Russia  appertains  to  the 
reaction  which  set  in  after  the  murder  of  Alexander 
II,  and  has  been  going  on  with  some  interrup- 
tions until  now.  It  has  been  engineered  and 
encouraged  in  the  highest  spheres  of  Petersburg 


ORGANISATION  OF  SELF-GOVERNMENT    65 

bureaucracy,  and  it  is  not  for  lack  of  official  sanction 
that  it  has  been  unable  to  carry  out  its  main  purpose. 
As  the  rise  of  provincial  self-government  was 
preceded  by  the  local  reorganisation  of  the  volost, 
even  so  the  reactionary  measures  affecting  pro- 
vincial self-government  have  to  be  considered  in 
connection  with  a  far-reaching  scheme  for  subjecting 
the  peasantry  to  the  strong  government  of  officials 
representing  the  class  interests  of  the  gentry,  and 
deriving  their  power  from  administrative  central- 
isation. An  attempt  in  this  direction  was  made 
by  the  institution  of  "  land-captains "  (Zemskie 
natchalnikf)  under  the  law  of  June  12,  1889. 

"  The  new  officer  was,  on  the  one  hand,  made  the 
centre  of  all  the  administrative  affairs  of  his  district 
— sanitary  measures,  relief  of  the  poor,  relief  in 
cases  of  agricultural  distress,  supervision  as  to  all 
material  and  moral  interests  of  the  population. 
On  the  other,  he  was  to  be  judge  in  the  first  instance 
in  minor  civil  and  criminal  cases.  Thirdly,  he  was 
to  act  more  especially  as  a  guardian  and  controller 
in  all  cases  which  concerned  the  peasantry.  As 
one  of  these  land-captains  pointedly  expressed  it, 
they  were  to  act  as  nurses  to  the  peasantry.  The 
punishing  power  of  these  nurses  is  very  extensive. 
They  have  the  right  of  sentencing  village  elders  and 
judges  to  prison,  and  are  even  provided  with  dis- 
F 


66       SELF-GOVERNMENT    IN    RUSSIA 

cretionary  power  to  put  a  peasant  into  prison 
without  any  form  of  trial  and  without  any  possi- 
bility of  appeal,  simply  for  supposed  disobedience." 
"...  a  guarantee  seems  provided  by  the  right 
of  the  inhabitants  to  appeal  from  the  decision  of 
land-captains  to  sessions,  composed  of  the  same 
magistrates  under  the  chairmanship  of  the  marshal 
of  the  district  and  with  the  adjunct  of  a  few  trained 
lawyers.  This  minority  of  jurists  is  exerting  some 
beneficial  influence  on  the  lawless  practices  of  the 
land-captains,  but  then  the  decisions  of  this  district 
board  are  themselves  subject  to  be  overruled  by 
the  board  of  the  province,  in  which  the  legal  element 
is  all  but  absent,  and  there  the  procedure  stops. 
The  department  of  this  peculiar  arbitrary  justice  is 
not  in  direct  communication  with  the  Senate,  which 
towers  over  all  other  courts  of  law."1 

Simultaneously  with  this  measure,  designed  to 
revive  squirearchy  in  a  new  shape,  a  new  statute 
was  enacted  for  the  Zemstvos.  The  arch-reactionary 
Minister  of  the  Interior,  Count  Dmitry  Tolstoy,  had 
planned  to  subordinate  the  Zemstvos  completely 
to  the  Crown  officials  and  to  turn  them  into  boards 
for  carrying  out  the  orders  of  centralised  bureau- 
cracy. The  Count  died,  however,  without  having 

1  Vinogradoff  in  "Lectures  on  the  Nineteenth  Century" 
(Cambridge,  1903),  pp.  263-4. 


ORGANISATION  OF  SELF-GOVERNMENT    67 

put  this  delightful  scheme  into  operation.  The 
new  statute  of  1890  turned  out  to  be  only  a  corrected 
edition  of  that  of  1864 — corrected,  to  be  sure,  in  a 
characteristic  manner.  The  gist  of  the  change  is 
disclosed  by  the  altered  franchise.  Instead  of  the 
three  colleges  of  1864  arranged  mainly  on  property 
qualifications,  the  electoral  groups  were  formed 
frankly  on  class  lines.  The  first  college  is  composed 
of  members  of  the  gentry  (noblesse),  the  second  of 
persons  belonging  to  all  other  classes  except  the 
peasantry  and  the  clergy.  A  third  group  is  formed 
by  the  peasants,  who  have  to  elect  their  repre- 
sentatives not  in  colleges,  but  in  the  volosts,  the 
lists  of  these  representatives  being  submitted  for 
confirmation  to  the  governor  of  the  province.  This 
is  explicit  enough,  and  the  character  of  the  change 
is  further  emphasised  by  the  proportional  distribu- 
tion of  the  deputies  among  the  orders ;  57  %  of 
the  seats  fall  to  the  gentry,  13%  to  intermediate 
classes,  about  30%  to  the  peasantry.  The  clergy 
do  not  take  part  in  the  representation.  This 
reorganisation  undoubtedly  poured  a  good  deal  of 
water  into  the  wine  of  Zemstvo  workers.  The 
policy  both  of  the  Home  Office  and  of  provincial 
governors  kept  on  a  level  with  the  reactionary 
tendency  initiated  by  the  statute  of  1890.  For 
instance,  after  agrarian  troubles  in  the  South  in 


68        SELF-GOVERNMENT    IN    RUSSIA 

1902,  statistical  work  carried  on  by  the  Zemstvos 
was  stopped  in  twelve  provinces  because  the 
statisticians  were  accused  of  carrying  on  revolu- 
tionary agitation.  And  yet,  strange  to  say,  even 
these  energetic  counter-attacks  did  not  succeed  in 
stifling  the  progressive  spirit  of  the  self-governing 
provinces.  The  latter  could  not  be  prevented  from 
spending  money  on  schools  and  hospitals,  on  roads 
and  statistics.  In  1900  the  magician  of  the  Ministry 
of  Finance,  Witte,  himself  entered  the  lists  against 
the  obnoxious  counties.  The  law  of  June  12,  1900, 
enacted  that — 

"  No  province  is  to  increase  rates  by  more  than 
three  per  cent  of  the  previous  year." 

It  has  been  pointed  out  that  this  method  of 
holding  expenditure  and  self-imposition  chained  to 
the  budget  of  previous  years  is  entirely  lacking  in 
a  rational  basis.  It  just  falls  as  a  block  on  schemes 
of  development,  and  the  greatest  sufferers  are  those 
who  for  one  reason  or  the  other  had  held  back 
with  their  imposition  and  requirements. 

Moreover,  the  late  Count  Witte  presented  a 
secret  memoir  to  the  Emperor  in  which  he  drew 
an  elaborate  comparison  between  bureaucracy  and 
self-government,  and  sought  to  prove  that  the 
further  progress  of  the  latter  would  inevitably  lead 


ORGANISATION  OF  SELF-GOVERNMENT    69 

to  the  downfall  of  autocratic  monarchy.  Some  of 
his  arguments  are  so  characteristic  that  I  cannot 
refrain  from  referring  to  them  at  some  length. 

They  amount  to  this,  that  self-government,  even 
local  or  provincial,  is  in  its  essence  a  political 
arrangement  and  as  such  opposed  to  absolute 
monarchy.  If  self-government  is  to  live  and  to 
act  rationally  it  has  to  develop  into  a  constitu- 
tion. If  it  cannot  be  allowed  to  do  so,  it  has  to  be 
replaced  by  a  centralised  bureaucracy.  After  grant- 
ing that  such  a  bureaucracy  leads  to  arbitrary 
power  and  dead  formalism,  and  quoting  the  con- 
temptuous remarks  of  Stein  as  to  official  writing 
machines,  Count  Witte  nevertheless  assumes  that 
Russian  bureaucracy  will  produce  a  new  political 
type,  unknown  to  history,  that  it  will  in  fact  turn 
out  to  be  an  aristocracy  of  work  and  enlightenment. 
.  .  .  This  government  will  somehow  abstain  from 
arbitrary  measures,  arrests,  exceptional  tribunals 
and  other  kinds  of  oppression,  it  will  guarantee 
freedom  of  labour,  thought  and  conscience.  As 
for  society,  it  must  be  left  to  follow  private  interests 
and  in  them  to  seek  an  outlet  for  its  energies. 
Nothing  is  more  apt  to  ruin  the  prestige  of  authority 
than  a  frequent  and  extensive  employment  of 
repression.  Measures  of  repression  are  dangerous, 
and  when  they  get  to  be  continuous,  they  either 


70        SELF-GOVERNMENT   IN    RUSSIA 

lead  to  an  explosion  or  else  turn  the  people  into  a 
casual  throng,  into  human  dust.1 

As  you  see,  the  most  prominent  among  Russian 
bureaucrats,  Witte,  boldly  challenged  self-govern- 
ment on  behalf  of  an  all-powerful  bureaucracy.  The 
trial  by  battle  might  have  been  decided  in  favour  of 
the  latter  if  the  opponents  had  been  left  to  fight  out 
their  duel  in  a  "  stricken  field."  But  the  contest 
was  not  waged  on  these  lines  :  it  assumed  the  shape 
of  a  competition  for  the  production  of  masterpieces. 
In  other  words,  self-government  was  able  to  pro- 
duce some  very  creditable  results  in  spite  of  diffi- 
culties. Bureaucracy  had  also  to  show  what  it  could 
do  for  the  people.  And  its  achievements  were  far 
from  brilliant  at  the  very  time  when  it  was  especially 
overbearing  and  oppressive. 

The  conduct  of  the  Japanese  war  could  not  be 
described  as  a  triumph  of  Russian  officialdom. 

1  Reference  from  "Lectures  on  the  Nineteenth  Century," 
pp.  273-4. 


CHAPTER   III 

POPULAR  EDUCATION 

IT  is  not  my  intention  to  attempt  a  general 
survey  of  the  development  of  Russian  education 
— the  subject  is  too  wide  and  could  not  be  treated 
without  many  digressions  into  the  field  of  political 
and  ecclesiastical  history.  There  is,  however,  one 
aspect  of  the  subject  which  is  of  utmost  importance 
for  us  in  connection  with  the  study  of  Russian 
self-government,  namely,  elementary  education  :  it 
is  only  by  means  of  a  sound  system  of  elementary 
education  that  self-government  can  acquire  a  solid 
basis  and  a  sure  prospect  of  future  development. 
Therefore,  it  is  not  astonishing  to  find  that  the  growth 
of  self-governing  institutions  in  the  provinces  and 
towns  has  exercised  a  decisive  influence  on  the 
progress  of  popular  education.  It  is  hardly  neces- 
sary to  add  that  schools  of  the  higher  grades — 
Universities  and  gymnasiums  or  secondary  public 
schools — attained  a  sufficiently  high  standing  and 
spread  over  the  country  long  before  elementary 
schools  had  made  any  considerable  advance  either 

71 


72        SELF-GOVERNMENT  IN   RUSSIA 

in  numbers  or  in  quality.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
earlier  development  of  superior  schools  contributed 
not  a  little  to  the  formation  and  progress  of  the 
more  modest  elementary  institutions.  It  is  un- 
doubtedly easier  to  start  higher  teaching  among  the 
well-to-do  classes  than  to  organise  the  masses  of 
the  people  for  educational  purposes. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  Ancient  Russia  all 
properly  conceived  instruction  had  to  aim  at  the 
training  of  pious  men  abiding  by  God's  precepts. 
These  precepts  were  interpreted  to  the  orthodox  by 
the  Church,  and  the  true  Christian  had  to  follow  the 
teaching  of  the  Church  without  flinching  or  discussion. 
Knowledge  outside  this  religious  sphere  was  not 
directly  condemned,  but  regarded  as  a  form  of 
human  curiosity  which  might  be  indulged  in  to  some 
extent  provided  it  did  not  distract  attention  from  the 
main  purpose.  This  unreasoning  piety  was  naturally 
combined  with  a  religious  creed  in  which  stress  was 
laid  not  on  the  intellectual  mastery  of  ideas,  but  on 
adherence  to  ritual  and  customary  practices.  Regular 
schooling  did  not  play  any  part  in  such  a  scheme  of 
life,  and  even  the  priest  received  but  scanty  teach- 
ing :  the  "  Stoglav  "  synod  of  1551  condemned  the 
illiteracy  of  the  clergy  and  enjoined  them  to 
open  schools  in  the  houses  of  the  best  priests  in  the 
towns  and  to  teach  their  children  to  read,  to  write, 


POPULAR    EDUCATION  73 

and  to  sing  Church  music.  It  was  quite  common 
even  in  the  seventeenth  century  for  candidates  to 
be  admitted  to  orders  who  could  neither  read  nor 
write,  and  had  merely  managed  to  learn  some  of  the 
services  by  heart.  The  movement  for  the  revision 
of  books  and  ecclesiastical  practices  in  the  second 
half  of  the  century  and  the  struggle  with  the  Old 
Ritualists  made  it  clear  to  the  Moscow  authorities 
that  some  systematic  education  was  a  national 
want.  A  Greek  bishop,  the  Metropolitan  of 
Gaza,  Palsios  Ligarides,  put  it  this  way :  "If  I 
were  asked,  what  is  the  support  of  clerical  and 
secular  office,  I  should  answer — firstly,  schools,  and, 
secondly,  schools,  and,  thirdly,  schools."  In  the 
reigns  of  the  Tsars  Alexis  Mikhalovitch  and  Fedor 
Alexeievitch,  father  and  elder  brother  of  Peter 
the  Great,  scholastic  academies  were  founded  in 
connection  with  the  monasteries  of  St.  Andrew  and 
of  the  "  Saviour's  Ikon "  (Zaikonospassky)  in 
Moscow,  under  the  rival  influence  of  two  schools — 
a  Latin  school  taking  its  inspiration  from  Kiev 
and  indirectly  from  the  Jesuits,  and  a  Hellenistic 
school  prompted  by  Greeks  from  Constantinople 
and  Mount  Athos  and  patronised  by  men  of  the 
stricter  Moscow  stamp.  There  was  in  this  way  a 
certain  literary  stir  in  the  superior  sphere  of  Mus- 
covite society  towards  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 


74       SELF-GOVERNMENT   IN    RUSSIA 

century,  but  the  current  did  not  reach  very  deeply 
and  was  not  strong  enough  to  lead  to  extensive  insti- 
tutional developments.  When  Peter  appeared  on 
the  scene,  the  importance  of  instruction  for  the  pur- 
pose of  acquiring  skill  in  crafts  of  every  kind  became 
one  of  the  leading  preoccupations  of  the  reformers. 
The  first  Government  school  created  by  the  Tsar 
was  a  navigation  school,  opened  in  Moscow  of  all 
places,  under  the  guidance  of  a  Scotsman — a  certain 
Farquharson.  We  need  not  concern  ourselves  with 
the  fate  of  this  institution,  which  became  eventually 
the  Naval  College  of  St.  Petersburg,  nor  with  that 
of  the  kindred  Engineering  and  Artillery  Colleges. 
It  must  be  noted  that  Peter  entertained  the 
ambitious  project  of  endowing  his  Empire  with  a 
network  of  secular  and  ecclesiastical  schools.  He 
instituted  schools  of  arithmetic  in  1714,  and  en- 
joined the  clergy  by  the  regulations  of  1720  to 
open  regular  ecclesiastical  schools.  But  although 
pupils  were  commandeered  to  those  establishments 
and  teachers  were  subjected  to  rules  instinct  with 
"  frightfulness,"  the  attendance  was  of  the  poorest 
and  the  result  disappointing. 

Catherine  II  made  a  second  effort  in  the  same 
direction  with  the  help  of  Yankovitch,  a  Serbian 
pedagogue  lent  by  Joseph  II.  A  statute  for  primary 
schools  was  issued  in  1786,  but  although  it  was 


POPULAR   EDUCATION  75 

drawn  up  in  a  spirit  worthy  of  the  age  of  the 
Encyclopaedists,  and  prescribed  among  other  things 
the  study  of  the  "  Obligations  of  a  man  and  citizen," 
the  results  obtained  were  meagre.  This  may  be 
gathered,  e.g.,  from  the  fact  that  in  the  large  and 
important  province  of  St.  Petersburg  there  were 
only  some  2000  pupils  in  1802.  Private  tuition  had 
still  to  supply  in  the  main  the  needs  of  popular 
education.  Under  these  circumstances,  liberal  pro- 
jects initiated  in  the  beginning  of  Alexander  I's  reign, 
though  excellent  in  theory  and  aiming  at  a  com- 
plete educational  ladder  ascending  from  elementary 
schools  to  universities,  were  doomed  to  failure. 
A  proper  teaching  staff  was  all  but  absent,  and  the 
peasantry  of  the  age  of  serfdom  proved  an  un- 
suitable material  for  the  spread  of  popular  educa- 
tion. 

Nicholas  I's  reign  is  marked  by  the  subjection  of 
all  initiative  to  stringent  bureaucratic  supervision. 
Private  schools  were  prohibited  and  an  elaborate 
statute  for  the  organisation  of  schools  passed  in 
1828.  In  spite  of  the  refrigerating  atmosphere  of 
Nicholas  I's  policy  some  progress  in  popular  educa- 
tion may  be  noticed  during  the  thirty  years  of  his 
reign.  It  was  a  great  thing  'that  the  gentry  was 
acquiring  idealistic  notions  as  to  knowledge  and 
culture.  Such  centres  as  the  University  of  Moscow 


76       SELF-GOVERNMENT    IN    RUSSIA 

could  not  fail  to  spread  enlightenment  around  them. 
In  the  serried  ranks  of  bureaucracy  itself  the 
ministry  of  State  domains  which  had  to  deal  with 
free  "  State  peasants "  was  busy  with  opening 
schools  and  attracting  teachers.  The  totals  of 
Nicholas  I's  reign  may  be  gauged  by  the  help  of  the 
following  statistical  data  obtained  in  1856,  very 
soon  after  Nicholas'  death.  A  population  of  sixty- 
four  millions  was  served  by  8227  schools  with 
450,000  pupils,  that  is  one  pupil  per  143  heads  of 
population.  In  Central  Russia  the  percentage  was 
about  one  in  100,  but  it  fell  considerably  in  the 
eastern  governments,  and  Siberia  had  altogether 
only  312  schools. 

The  epoch  of  Alexander  II  produced  a  momentous 
change  in  this  as  in  every  other  respect.  The  crisis 
was  intimately  connected  with  the  institution  of  self- 
government  :  the  new  Zemstvos  and  the  rejuvenated 
municipalities  of  Central  Russia  became  the  pioneers 
of  popular  education,  while  the  emancipation  of 
the  serfs  created  an  entirely  new  basis  in  a  free 
peasantry,  eager  for  instruction  and  firmly  con- 
vinced of  the  power  of  knowledge.  The  regulations 
of  1864  and  of  1874,  the  latter  still  in  force,  provided 
the  external  framework  of  the  movement.  It  was 
deemed  necessary  to  give  the  system  a  particularly 
conservative  stamp,  and  in  1873  the  landed  gentry, 


POPULAR    EDUCATION  77 

or  noblesse,  was  called  upon  "  to  stand  guard  at  the 
gates  of  the  school  against  mischievous  influences." 
This  explains  the  peculiar  cast  of  school  administra- 
tion as  definitely  adopted  in  1874.  All  schools 
opened  by  the  Zemstvo  of  a  district  were  to  be 
supervised  by  a  council  presided  over  by  the 
marshal  of  the  gentry  and  consisting  of  a  ministerial 
inspector,  a  representative  of  the  Ministry  of  the 
Interior,  a  deputy  from  the  clergy  and  delegates 
from  the  district.  The  shares  in  burdens  and  re- 
sponsibilities were  apportioned  in  the  following  way : 
the  endowment  of  teachers  and  the  equipment  of 
schools  with  books  and  other  scholastic  materials 
fell  to  the  Zemstvos,  the  construction  of  buildings 
as  well  as  lighting  and  heating  to  the  village  com- 
munities, and  the  control  of  tuition  to  the  Govern- 
ment inspectors.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was 
impossible  to  exclude  the  self-governing  organisa- 
tions from  taking  a  lively  interest  and  exerting 
influence  as  regards  the  subject-matter  itself,  that 
is  as  regards  school  tuition.  The  teaching  was 
restricted  to  three  years,  and  embraced  the  ele- 
mentary study  of  religion,  Church  Slavonic,  Russian, 
arithmetic,  and  such  notions  of  history,  geography 
and  natural  science  as  could  be  imparted  by  means 
of  class  reading. 

A  rapid  increase  in  the  number  of  schools  has  to 


78        SELF-GOVERNMENT   IN    RUSSIA 

be  noted  in  the  period  between  1863  and  1880  : 
14,500  schools,  or  69%  of  the  whole  number,  had 
been  opened  in  these  years,  which  coincide  with 
the  beginnings  of  Zemstvo  self-government :  in  the 
Zemstvo  provinces  of  Central  Russia  the  increase 
amounted  to  78%. 

In  1884  a  new  departure  was  made  by  the  impetus 
given  to  Church  schools  in  the  parishes.  As  I  have 
said  already,  a  tradition  of  ecclesiastical  teaching 
runs  all  through  Russian  history,  but  the  activity 
of  the  Church  was  never  very  energetic  because  it 
had  to  be  carried  on  in  spare  time  by  priests  and 
clerks  who  attended  primarily  to  their  ecclesiastical 
duties.  The  rise  of  spiritual  consciousness  which 
characterises  the  history  of  Alexander  II's  reign 
led  to  a  marked  change  in  this  as  well  as  in  other 
respects.  There  was  also  another  side  to  this 
revival,  namely,  a  reaction  against  the  free-thinking 
and  materialistic  conceptions  prevalent  among  the 
liberals.  Scripture  "  and  Divinity  "  were  taught 
as  necessary  subjects  in  all  the  schools  of  secular 
institutions,  but  this  was  not  deemed  sufficient  by 
the  votaries  of  ardent  nationalism.  The  leaders 
of  the  movement  made  a  stand  against  the  prosaic 
secularism  of  the  Zemstvo  school,  and  strove  for 
a  complete  subjection  of  primary  education  to 
orthodox  Christianity  as  interpreted  by  the  Russian 


POPULAR   EDUCATION  79 

Church.  As  an  official  document  issued  by  the 
Holy  Synod  puts  it :  "  The  character  of  the  Church 
School  is  determined  by  the  fact  that  it  not  only 
possesses  among  the  subjects  of  its  curriculum  one 
bearing  the  title  of  '  Religion,'  but  that  the  whole 
of  the  instruction  must  be  permeated  by  the  Church 
spirit  and  gravitate  towards  the  Church  as  the 
centre  of  the  religious  and  moral  life  of  the  local 
community."1  The  principal  leader  of  the  revival 
was  a  former  professor  of  the  University  of  Moscow, 
S.  Rat cl  \insky,  who  devoted  his  whole  time  and 
energy  to  teaching  in  a  village  school  and  acquired 
a  wide  influence  on  other  patrons  and  teachers. 
Eventually  the  Government  and  the  Synod  took  the 
Church  schools  under  their  special  protection. 
Besides  the  parochial  schools  of  that  type,  the  Church 
was  given  supervision  over  so-called  schools  of 
"  literacy,"  institutions  with  a  very  rudimentary 
programme  and  poorly  qualified  teachers,  which 
sprang  up  in  many  places  on  account  of  the  lack 
of  better  instruction.  It  is  contended  by  the 
opponents  of  Church  schools  of  both  kinds  that  the 
ecclesiastical  policy  followed  by  these  schools  does 

1  "  Explanatory  Memorandum  to  a  project  of  Law  relating 
to  Church  Parochial  Schools,"  referred  to  by  Darlington, 
"Education  in  Russia,"  337  (Vol.  XXIII.  of  Special  Reports 
of  the  Board  of  Education) 


8o        SELF-GOVERNMENT    IN    RUSSIA 

not  benefit  tuition,  and  that  in  some  cases  the  very 
existence  of  the  schools  was  no  more  than  a  hollow 
pretence.  In  proof  of  the  superiority  of  the  teaching 
in  Zemstvo  schools,  it  has  been  pointed  out  that  on 
an  average  71-5  children  attend  at  secular  schools 
and  only  36-5,  in  spite  of  Government  patronage, 
at  Church  schools. 

However  this  may  be,  the  rapid  spread  of  Church 
schools  is  a  feature  of  the  situation  in  the  last 
thirty  years  which  has  to  be  taken  into  account  in 
many  ways.  It  is  manifested  in  the  statistics  of 
school  organisation  and  attendance.  If  we  put 
together  the  report  of  the  Ministry  of  Public  In- 
struction for  1891  and  that  of  the  Holy  Synod 
for  1892,  we  find  that  there  were  27,000  secular 
schools,  if  we  may  use  the  expression,  though 
they  correspond  in  no  way  to  the  ecole  latque 
of  France  or  to  the  board  schools  of  England.  The 
number  of  pupils  in  these  establishments  was 
1,800,000  and  the  cost  16  millions  Rb.,  of  which 
1,500,000  was  defrayed  by  the  Government,  3 
millions  by  towns,  4  millions  by  villages,  5,300,000 
by  the  Zemstvos,  and  1,200,000  by  private  patrons. 
As  against  these  the  Church  had  the  supervision 
of  30,000  schools  with  931,000  pupils.  Of  these, 
twelve  thousand  were  parochial  schools  with  ap- 
proximately the  same  programme  as  that  of  the 


POPULAR   EDUCATION  81 

Zemstvo  institutions,  while  18,000  were  "  literacy  " 
schools  with  420,000  pupils. 

The  country  had  been  making  considerable 
headway  since  the  miserable  situation  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  nineteenth  century,  but,  of  course, 
things  were  very  far  indeed  from  universal  instruc- 
tion. It  must  be  remembered,  however,  that  even 
in  the  most  favourably  situated  countries  of  the 
West  the  ideal  of  such  instruction  was  set  very 
late  and  achieved  at  the  cost  of  very  great  efforts. 
The  landmark  in  England  may  be  said  to  be 
Forster's  Bill  of  1871,  and  in  France  the  measures 
passed  by  Jules  Ferry  in  1881  and  in  subsequent 
years. 

In  Russia  there  could  be  no  talk  of  obligatory 
instruction :  neither  the  schools  nor  the  teachers 
necessary  for  its  working  were  available;  besides, 
the  enormous  difficulties  presented  by  distances, 
bad  roads,  weather  conditions  and  economic  want 
constituted  unsurmountable  obstacles  for  the  time 
being. 

The  final  results  of  what  may  be  called  the 
Zemstvo  period  in  the  evolution  of  popular  educa- 
tion may  be  gathered  from  the  following  figures 
representing  the  state  of  elementary  schools  in 
1903,  just  before  the  Russo-Japanese  conflict. 
There  were  altogether  84,500  schools,  of  which 
G 


82        SELF-GOVERNMENT    IN    RUSSIA 

about  40,000  were  under  the  management  of  the 
Ministry  of  Public  Instruction  and  rather  more  than 
43,000  under  the  management  of  the  Holy  Synod. 
Of  the  latter  the  greater  part  were  plain  establish- 
ments of  literacy,  and  altogether  the  standing  of 
the  Church  schools  was  considerably  lower  than  that 
of  the  lay  institutions ;  this  is  reflected  in  the  fact 
that  the  secular  schools,  though  fewer  in  number, 
served  a  greater  number  of  pupils,  namely,  over 
3  millions  as  against  less  than  2  millions  in  the 
Church  schools  (1,889,000). 

And  now  we  come  to  another  turning  point  in 
the  winding  course  of  development. 

The  commotion  of  the  Japanese  war,  and  of  the 
constitutional  changes  produced  by  it,  called  forth 
an  unprecedented  activity  of  the  State  in  regard  to 
popular  education.  As  it  was  recognised  after  the 
Crimean  war  that  drill-sergeants  were  not  the  most 
important  public  officers,  even  so  it  was  felt  after 
the  Japanese  war  that  Russian  disasters  had  been 
brought  about  by  the  neglect  of  intellectual  efficiency 
and  of  popular  education. 

The  radical  change  of  views  in  this  respect  is 
strikingly  indicated  by  the  sudden  increase  of  State 
expenditure  for  elementary  schools.  These  estab- 
lishments, which  had  been  first  left  to  vegetate 
somehow  and  had  then  been  consigned  to  the  care 


POPULAR    EDUCATION  83 

of  counties,  of  towns,  and  of  the  clergy,  assume 
all  of  a  sudden  a  great  importance  in  the  State,  to 
judge  at  least  by  the  sensitive  thermometer  of 
Treasury  appropriations.  Large  credits  are  voted 
from  year  to  year,  and  the  striving  towards  universal 
education  becomes  a  characteristic  sign  of  the  time. 
This  is  effected  under  the  unremitting  pressure  of 
the  Duma,  "  in  the  atmosphere  of  popular  repre- 
sentation," as  one  of  the  workers  in  the  field  has 
aptly  put  it. 

The  story  of  the  ten  years  which  followed  the 
rise  of  national  representation  is  well  worth  study- 
ing. It  throws  a  flood  of  light  on  the  driving  forces 
and  the  peculiar  obstacles  of  Russian  progress. 
The  Duma  had  to  go  to  work  arm-in-arm  with  an 
executive  organisation — the  Ministry  of  Public 
Instruction,  which,  though  not  unwilling  to  con- 
tribute its  share  to  a  task  of  recognised  public 
utility,  was  hampered  in  every  way  by  traditions 
of  red  tape  and  by  aloofness  from  actual  life.  It 
has  even  been  said  with  much  truth  that  the 
Ministry  of  Public  Instruction  started  with  a  deep- 
rooted  distrust  of  public  instruction.  Its  machinery 
was  clogged  with  waste  paper,  if  one  may  use  the 
expression.  Mr.  E.  Kovalevsky  relates  with  some 
humour  the  following  characteristic  little  incident  : 
"  Twice  in  the  course  of  the  year  I  have  met  in  the 


84       SELF-GOVERNMENT    IN    RUSSIA 

streets  of  St.  Petersburg  a  deputation  from  the  town 
of  Efremov,  engaged  in  presenting  a  request  for 
financial  assistance  for  the  purpose  of  building  a 
town  school.  The  deputation  had  been  petitioning 
for  seven  years  and  had  had  to  apply  to  twelve 
different  institutions  on  its  errands.  At  last  the 
Minister  '  himself '  had  assured  these  gentlemen 
that  their  request  had  been  granted.  One  may 
imagine  how  glad  they  were,  but  they  were  informed 
that  a  thirteenth  instance  was  still  in  front  of  them 
— namely,  the  Senate."  Such  methods  are  not 
exactly  encouraging  for  the  display  of  initiative 
and  public  spirit.  Yet  under  the  powerful  pressure 
of  a  new  political  current  running  through  the 
channel  of  the  Duma,  even  bureaucracy  had  to 
mend  its  ways  in  some  respects.  A  rather  hazy 
memoir  on  the  introduction  of  universal  instruction 
was  prepared  by  the  Ministry  for  the  second  Duma, 
but  it  did  not  reach  the  stage  of  discussion  there, 
and  it  is  to  the  third  Duma  that  belongs  the  honour 
of  making  a  real  start  in  that  direction. 

The  first  step  was  the  passing  of  the  law  of  June  3, 
1908.  The  principle  was  laid  down  that  the  State 
ought  to  take  over  from  the  counties  and  from  the 
towns  the  charge  of  paying  the  teachers  at  the  rate 
of  360  Rb.  a  year  to  every  teacher  of  a  class  of  fifty 
pupils,  and  of  30  Rb.  (increased  later  on  to  60)  to  the 


POPULAR    EDUCATION  85 

priest  for  religious  instruction.  As  Russia  already 
possessed  about  70,000  elementary  schools  of  all  types 
with  some  5  million  pupils,  and  as  the  total  number 
of  children  of  school  age  (from  six  to  eleven)  was  sup- 
posed to  be  13!  millions,  270,000  sets  of  fifty  pupils 
each  were  recognised  to  be  necessary  to  accommo- 
date the  pupils  under  a  system  of  universal  educa- 
tion. A  series  of  appropriations  increasing  by  10 
millions  every  year  in  the  course  of  ten  years  was 
suggested,  but  the  Ministry  asked  for  much  less  and 
the  Duma  voted  about  7  millions  to  begin  with. 

It  is  rather  significant  that  the  promoters  of 
popular  education  did  not  succeed,  in  spite  of 
strenuous  efforts,  to  carry  a  law  "  consolidating  "  the 
rule  of  gradual  increases  for  the  required  number  of 
years.  The  idea  was  constantly  present  before  the 
minds  of  the  legislators  and  repeatedly  referred  to 
in  debate.  It  was  worked  out  in  fuller  and  fuller 
detail,  the  growth  of  the  population  being  duly 
taken  into  account.  The  goal  of  universal  instruc- 
tion was  set  first  in  1920,  then  in  1922,  ultimately 
in  1924,  while  the  number  of  pupils  to  be  accommo- 
dated was  reckoned  out  to  be  nearer  15  than  13 1 
millions.  What  is  even  more  important,  it  was  made 
a  condition  for  obtaining  grants  from  the  Treasury 
that  the  counties  and  towns  applying  for  them 
should  present  a  plan  for  the  gradual  introduction 


86       SELF-GOVERNMENT    IN    RUSSIA 

of  universal  instruction  and  a  map  of  the  network 
of  schools  designed  to  carry  out  the  plan.  Nearly 
all  the  Zemstvo  districts  have  presented  such  plans 
by  this  time,  while,  curiously  enough,  out  of  some 
960  municipalities  only  about  200  had  done  so 
by  1913.  The  Council  of  Ministers  and  the  Council 
of  the  Empire  entertained  an  invincible  antipathy 
against  the  idea  of  a  "consolidation"  of  increasing 
expenditure  for  a  number  of  years.  The  arguments 
used  were  chiefly  of  a  financial  kind,  but  in  the  light 
of  other  features  of  opposition  to  educational 
reform  one  cannot  help  thinking  that  the  Ministry 
and  the  "  House  of  Lords  "  were  also  actuated  by 
a  vague  dread  of  the  progressive  tendency  of 
popular  education. 

In  any  case,  the  educational  reformers  were  not 
weary  of  insisting  again  and  again  on  the  require- 
ments of  popular  education  and  on  improving 
its  prospects.  The  yearly  growth  of  appropria- 
tions for  the  purpose  of  widening  the  network  of 
schools  during  the  five  sessions  of  the  third  Duma 
is  represented  by  the  following  table  : 


In  1908 

6,900,000 

„  1909 

6,000,000 

„  1910 

.  10,000,000 

„  1911 

7,000,000 

„  1912 

9,000,000 

POPULAR   EDUCATION  87 

Though  the  main  effort  of  the  Duma  was  directed 
to  provide  funds  for  the  payment  of  teachers,  it 
must  not  be  supposed  that  the  appropriations  from 
the  Treasury  in  the  domain  of  popular  education 
were  restricted  to  that  object.  The  erection  of 
school  buildings  was  primarily  the  task  of  Zemstvos, 
municipalities  and  village  communities,  but  the 
State  had  to  help  also  in  this  respect,  and  it  did  so 
mainly  by  opening  credits  on  advantageous  con- 
ditions— usually  at  3%  with  repayment  spread 
over  twenty  years.  In  order  to  meet  this  demand 
a  fund  was  formed  in  accordance  with  a  law  passed 
on  May  28,  1909  :  the  honorary  designation  of 
Peter  the  Great's  fund  was  very  appropriately  given 
to  this  endowment.  It  grew  by  yearly  increases  in 
connection  with  the  spread  of  the  network  of  primary 
schools.  It  may  be  added  that  prospective 
calculations  of  the  expenditure  on  all  hands  for 
1922,  when  the  scheme  of  universal  instruction  was 
expected  to  be  completed,  pointed  to  a  general  out- 
lay of  150  million  Rb.  a  year,  of  which  50  millions  had 
been  appropriated  by  the  end  of  1910  (38  millions 
to  Ministry  schools  and  12  millions  to  Synod  schools)  -1 
The  cost  of  buildings  was  calculated  at  360  millions 
and  the  Zemstvos  and  municipalities  were  expected  to 
increase  their  charges  in  this  respect  by  77  millions, 

1  Made  at  the  close  of  1910. 


88       SELF-GOVERNMENT   IN    RUSSIA 

while  the  expenditure  on  the  upkeep  of  houses,  fuel, 
light,  etc.,  would  have  to  be  raised  by  20  millions. 
Such  figures,  though  merely  approximate  and 
likely  to  be  modified  by  further  measures,  give 
some  idea  of  the  magnitude  of  the  task  and  also  of 
the  firm  course  pursued  by  the  leaders  of  the  third 
Duma  in  this  matter. 

Altogether  the  services  rendered  by  the  Duma 
representation  in  developing  the  productive  expendi- 
ture of  the  Empire  can  hardly  be  over-estimated.  It 
may  be  sufficient  to  say  that  the  expenditure  for  all 
forms  of  public  instruction  was  actually  doubled1 
in  the  interval  between  1907  and  1912,  rising  from 
85  millions  to  170  millions  a  year. 

The  principles  and  main  results  were  endorsed  at 
a  great  conference  of  the  workers  for  elementary 
education  held  in  Moscow  in  1912  after  a  remark- 
able statement  made  by  the  reporter  of  the  Public 
Instruction  Committee  in  the  Duma,  Mr.  E.  P. 
Kovalevsky. 

This  is  the  bright  side  of  the  picture,  but  one  must 
not  overlook  the  shady  side  either.  It  is  partly 
expressed  in  the  rivalry  between  Church  schools  and 
secular  schools.  There  were  other  important  points 
of  dispute,  e.g.  the  question  as  to  the  part  to  be 

1  The  Ministry  of  Public  Instruction  came  in  for  an  increase 
of  I54%>  while  the  endowment  of  teachers  rose  to  503%. 


POPULAR    EDUCATION  89 

played  by  the  Russian  language  in  the  curriculum 
of  schools  situated  in  districts  with  no  Russian 
population.  But  the  opposition  between  clerical 
management  and  secular  management  proved  to  be 
the  most  dangerous  rock  for  projects  of  thorough- 
going reform  and  rapid  progress.  The  Holy  Synod 
had  received  large  subsidies  (7,400,000  in  1908) 
from  the  Government  in  connection  with  its  schools 
ever  since  1884,  when  the  system  was  regularised. 
But  when  the  policy  of  gradual  increases  for  the 
payment  of  teachers  was  instituted  by  the  third 
Duma,  the  Synod  claimed  corresponding  appropria- 
tions, and  additional  credits  in  this  respect  were 
first  voted  during  the  session  of  1909-10.  It 
could  not  be  denied  that  the  underpaid  teachers 
of  parish  schools  and  of  "  literacy  schools  "  had 
as  great  a  claim  to  assistance  from  the  State  as  the 
workers  of  Zemstvo  and  town  schools.  But  there 
was  a  material  difficulty  in  adjusting  standards 
and  in  elaborating  a  comprehensive  plan  of  school 
extension  on  divergent  lines  and  under  two  different 
systems  of  personnel  and  administration.  For  this 
reason  the  Duma  reformers,  although  not  opposing 
grants  to  the  clergy  for  the  maintenance  of  its 
teaching  staff,  considered  the  spread  of  Church 
schools  in  the  light  of  an  extraneous  element  and 
demanded  that  these  institutions  should  be  ad- 


90        SELF-GOVERNMENT    IN    RUSSIA 

mitted  to  the  benefits  of  periodical  increases  on  the 
condition  of  their  conforming  to  certain  rules.  There 
were  two  principal  conditions  of  this  kind  :  (i)  the 
entering  into  an  agreement  with  the  school  authori- 
ties of  the  State  in  regard  to  the  filling  up  of  definite 
places  in  the  authorised  network  of  schools  :  (2)  the 
appointment  of  properly  qualified  teachers.  The 
Synod  administration  did  not  refuse  to  comply  with 
these  conditions  in  principle,  but  tried  to  evade 
them  by  applying  for  grants  in  aid  en  bloc,  without 
submitting  their  programme  and  policy  to  the 
examination  of  the  Duma. 

The  split  on  these  questions  came  to  a  head  in 
1912,  during  the  fifth  and  last  session  of  the  third 
Duma.  Under  the  influence  of  the  clergy  the 
Council  of  the  Empire  sent  back  for  further 
examination  a  comprehensive  scheme  of  periodical 
increases  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  out  universal 
instruction.  When  the  subject  came  up  again  in 
the  Council  of  the  Empire  on  the  reports  of  a 
"  Conciliation  Committee,"  the  scheme  of  the  Duma 
was  again  wrecked  by  a  considerable  majority  led 
by  Count  Witte,  who  characterised  the  plan  as  an 
attempt  to  get  into  Paradise  by  means  of  murder- 
ing a  child.  The  child  in  question  was  the  Church 
school.  As  a  result  of  these  occurrences  further 
work  proceeded  in  the  fourth  Duma  along  the  line 


POPULAR    EDUCATION  91 

of  least  resistance,  and  in  the  shape  of  a  half- 
hearted compromise  between  the  two  rival  systems. 
This  is  undoubtedly  a  great  drawback,  and  the 
absence  of  a  guiding  law  settling  the  question  as  to 
periodical  increases  is  another.  Yet  the  progress 
in  the  direction  of  universal  instruction  and  of 
improvements  in  the  status  and  efficiency  of  the 
teaching  staff  has  been  maintained  and  several 
substantial  improvements  have  been  achieved.  The 
law  of  July  7, 1913,  not  only  secured  an  increase  of  10 
millions  Rb.,  but  introduced  two  very  important 
alterations.  It  was  decided  to  raise  the  minimum 
salary  of  teachers  from  360  to  480  Rb.,  and  a  scale 
of  four  additions  of  60  Rb.  each  on  the  completion 
of  every  five  years  of  service  was  adopted.  That 
means  that  a  qualified  teacher  was  entitled  to  720 
Rb.  a  year  after  twenty  years'  work.  This  swelled 
correspondingly  the  expenditure  of  the  State,  but 
both  the  School  and  the  Budget  Commission  warmly 
advocated  the  grants,  and  the  latter  were  cheer- 
fully passed  by  the  Duma.  Thus,  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  there  is  no  legal  scheme  establishing  once  for 
all  the  financial  steps  by  which  universal  instruction 
has  to  be  achieved,  the  idea  of  gradual  progress  to 
this  goal  has  taken  firm  hold  of  the  mind  of  the 
legislators  and  of  the  Imperial  executive,  and  the 
movement  goes  on  uninterruptedly.  It  has  been 


92        SELF-GOVERNMENT    IN    RUSSIA 

temporarily  blocked  by  the  war,  as  all  other  pro- 
ductive work,  but  apart  from  this  inevitable  set- 
back, the  completion  of  the  arrangements  necessary 
for  universal  education  is  as  much  a  matter  of 
certainty  as  human  affairs  can  be.  Russia  has 
accomplished  almost  exactly  half  the  journey  and 
should  be  able  to  reach  the  goal  in  some  ten  years. 

Before  leaving  the  subject  it  is  well  to  draw 
attention  to  two  more  points.  Unquestionably  the 
development  of  a  system  of  universal  instruction 
must  depend  not  only  on  the  provision  of  accommo- 
dation and  salaries,  but  also  on  a  sufficient  number 
of  qualified  teachers  and  on  their  convenient  dis- 
tribution all  over  the  country.  This  fact,  together 
with  the  topographic  and  economic  difficulties, 
makes  it  undesirable  and  even  impossible  to 
introduce  obligatory  school  attendance  at  one  stroke. 
That  is  why,  according  to  the  Russian  plan,  the 
legal  obligation  to  send  children  to  school  is  made 
to  depend  on  the  decision  of  local  authorities. 

As  to  the  duration  of  the  teaching,  a  four  years' 
course  is  contemplated  now,  and  the  school  of  four 
years  is  being  actually  introduced  in  the  more 
advanced  localities  of  the  Empire.  The  three  years' 
course  will  die  a  natural  death  as  well  as  the 
exceedingly  insufficient  arrangements  of  the 
"literacy"  schools.  The  principal  object  is  still 


POPULAR   EDUCATION  93 

to  secure  a  practical  extension  of  the  network  of 
elementary  schools.  In  coming  years  people  will 
remember  the  dark  ages  before  "  universal  instruc- 
tion "  with  a  shudder.  Let  us  hope  that  more 
fortunate  future  generations  may  also  remember 
with  gratitude  the  energetic  workers  who  achieved 
the  desired  end  and,  before  all,  the  modest,  self- 
sacrificing  teachers  whose  ceaseless  toil  is  the  con- 
dition precedent  to  all  improvements  in  this  field. 


CHAPTER  IV 
SELF-GOVERNMENT  AND   THE  WAR 

A  CHARACTERISTIC  feature  of  the  situation 
which  had  arisen  in  Russia  towards  the 
beginning  of  the  new  century  was  the  necessity  for 
the  State  of  appealing  to  the  help  of  the  self-govern- 
ing institutions  on  all  occasions  when  the  country 
was  in  trouble.  In  case  of  the  spread  of  epidemics, 
or  of  a  famine,  or  of  a  great  war,  there  was  nothing 
for  it  but  to  turn  to  the  devotion  and  energy  of 
the  suspected  and  maligned  Zemstvo  and  town 
organisations.  Such  was  the  case  during  the  famine 
of  1898,  for  example,  during  the  war  with  Japan,  and 
again  during  the  present  war.  On  such  occasions  the 
Zemstvos  were  eager  to  contribute  towards  social 
welfare,  and  always  came  forward  with  extensive  and 
efficient  help.  In  order  to  do  so  they  could  not 
restrict  themselves  to  the  ordinary  routine  of  their 
everyday  administration.  They  were  driven  out  of 
the  narrow  limits  of  their  class  franchise  and  had  to 
call  in  outsiders  belonging  to  the  numerous  groups 
of  the  poorer  intellectuals  who  were  debarred  from 

94 


SELF-GOVERNMENT   AND  THE  WAR    95 

taking  part  in  the  close  assemblies  of  the  provinces 
and  districts.  The  natural  intermediaries  in  such  cases 
were  the  members  of  the  so-called  "  third  element," 
namely,  the  numerous  professional  employees 
of  the  Zemstvo  institutions  —  doctors,  teachers, 
statisticians,  veterinary  surgeons,  agronomists,  clerks 
who  did  paid  work  under  the  Zemstvos.  In 
ordinary  times  there  was  a  good  deal  of  jealousy 
between  the  privileged  Zemstvo  representatives  and 
electors  on  one  hand,  and  the  staffs  of  the  employees 
on  the  other.  But  in  cases  of  emergency  the  two 
groups  joined  hands  and  the  "  third  element " 
proved  of  invaluable  help  for  the  further  mobilisa- 
tion of  social  workers.  Relief  work  during  the 
famine,  for  instance,  demanded  thousands  of  self- 
sacrificing  men  and  women  to  visit  the  stricken 
districts,  to  organise  feeding  centres,  to  control  the 
supply  of  provisions,  etc.  These  thousands  were 
readily  forthcoming;  they  were  in  most  cases 
students  of  the  Universities  and  of  the  women's 
colleges,  school  teachers,  small  employees  of  every 
kind.  Nothing  could  surpass  the  devotion  and 
collective  efficiency  of  these  improvised  hosts : 
the  Russian  intellectual  proletarian  came  out  on 
such  occasions  in  his  best  form,  ready  to  go  any- 
where and  do  anything,  absolutely  indifferent  to 
danger,  bearing  up  with  every  kind  of  hardship  and 


96       SELF-GOVERNMENT   IN    RUSSIA 

privation,  uncouth,  fantastic  and  sometimes  fanati- 
cal, but  unassumingly  heroic  and  revelling  in  the 
chance  of  giving  his  life  for  the  people.  It  is  not 
on  rare  occasions  and  for  short  periods  that  such 
efforts  were  made.  And  yet  instead  of  coming  to 
the  conclusion  that  men  like  these  ought  to  be 
drawn  closer  to  political  life,  that  this  self-sacrificing 
energy  should  become  a  permanent  source  of 
strength  to  the  commonwealth,  bureaucratic  rulers 
disbanded  these  improvised  levies  as  soon  as  they 
had  a  chance,  and  often  followed  up  a  great  wave 
of  popular  activity  by  measures  of  repression 
directed  against  those  democratic  allies  who  had 
helped  them  when  in  the  lurch. 

In  1903,  for  instance,  when  the  Zemstvos  were 
preparing  for  a  campaign  against  epidemics,  regula- 
tions were  enacted  (August  n,  1903)  which  cut 
short  all  participation  of  the  Zemstvos  in  the 
organisation  of  preventive  measures  against  in- 
fectious diseases.  A  similar  attempt  was  made  in 
the  domain  of  veterinary  legislation.  Bureaucracy 
was  not  only  antagonistic  to  democratic  movements 
by  nature :  it  was  also  haunted  by  the  dread  of  a 
concentration  of  the  Zemstvos  for  the  purpose  of 
obtaining  a  share  in  the  government  of  the  country. 
The  dread  was  not  without  foundation  ;  in  pro- 
portion as  the  activity  of  the  Zemstvos  increased, 


SELF-GOVERNMENT  AND  THE  WAR    97 

even  the  most  conservative  of  these  bodies  felt 
more  and  more  that  they  could  not  carry  on  their 
local  work  without  taking  stock  of  the  doings  of 
their  neighbours  and  arranging  for  co-operation 
with  them.  Besides,  the  political  education  ac- 
quired in  local  work  sought  a  natural  outlet  in  the 
wider  sphere  of  national  interests.  It  was  impossible 
to  invite  men  to  assist  people  in  matters  of 
rural  economy  in  one  or  the  other  province,  and 
to  forbid  them  to  consider  the  economic  needs  and 
resources  of  the  country  as  a  whole.  Gatherings 
like  the  congress  of  agronomic  assistance  held  in 
Moscow  towards  the  close  of  1901,  or  the  meetings 
of  the  committee  formed  in  1902  to  investigate  the 
needs  of  rural  husbandry,  became  naturally  the 
occasion  for  a  concentration  of  views  and  of  efforts. 
This  process  of  concentration  assumed  a  decisive 
political  turn  in  consequence  of  the  events  of  the 
Russo-Japanese  war.  Hospital  and  evacuation 
work  had  to  be  undertaken  on  a  vast  scale,  society 
lent  its  help  in  the  usual  patriotic  manner,  and 
among  other  organisations  a  powerful  All-Zemstvo 
Union  sprang  up  and  did  excellent  work.  When  the 
deficiencies  of  governmental  leadership  in  the  war 
became  more  and  more  apparent,  a  great  wave  of 
indignation  spread  through  the  country  and  the 
self-governing  units  became  the  centres  of  a  move- 
H 


98        SELF-GOVERNMENT   IN    RUSSIA 

ment  towards  political  regeneration.  A  "  Union  of 
Emancipation,"  started  abroad  as  a  secret  society, 
made  its  way  into  the  Empire.  The  progressive 
congresses  which  the  Government  did  not  dare  to 
suppress — the  first  in  Petersburg  in  November, 
1904;  the  second,  third  and  fourth  in  Moscow 
in  April,  in  May  and  in  September,  1905 ;  the 
fifth  in  Petersburg  in  November,  1905 — present  the 
principal  stages  of  the  constitutional  movement 
which  resulted  in  the  creation  of  the  Duma.  It 
would  be  out  of  the  question  for  us  to  follow  the 
history  of  that  movement  in  its  general  political 
course,  but  I  must  call  your  attention  to  one  fact 
in  its  earlier  period.  I  mean  the  emphatic  declara- 
tion made  by  the  Imperial  Government  on  December 
12  (25)  as  to  the  necessity  of  a  reorganisation  of  the 
Zemstvos  on  progressive  lines.  The  manifesto  in 
question  was  drafted  by  the  Home  Secretary  of 
that  time,  Prince  Sviatopolk  Mirsky,  with  the 
view  of  diverting  the  rising  tide  of  liberal  opinion 
into  the  channel  of  wider  self-government,  in 
order  to  avoid  a  surrender  to  constitutionalism. 
The  declarations  of  that  manifesto  do  not  lose  their 
significance  for  that  reason,  and  it  may  be  said  now, 
in  the  light  of  actual  events,  that  the  carrying  out 
of  that  programme  would  have  provided  the  new- 
born Russian  constitutionalism  with  a  broader  and 


SELF-GOVERNMENT  AND  THE  WAR    99 

firmer  foundation  than  that  afforded  by  the  hasty 
attempt  to  build  up  the  Duma  on  the  basis  of  a 
very  democratic  franchise  practically  cut  off  from 
the  support  of  provincial  institutions. 

The  second  clause  of  that  memorable  manifesto 
promised  to  concede  to  the  county  and  town  in- 
stitutions "  the  widest  possible  participation  in  the 
management  of  the  different  sides  of  local  welfare, 
by  entrusting  to  them,  within  legal  limits,  the  inde- 
pendent conduct  of  this  work ;  to  call  to  co-operation 
in  these  institutions  on  a  uniform  basis  representa- 
tives of  all  the  parts  of  the  population  interested  in 
local  affairs ;  in  order  to  achieve  this  aim  with  the 
greatest  measure  of  success,  to  organise  by  the  side 
of  existing  provincial  municipal  institutions,  and  in 
the  closest  connection  with  them,  self-governing 
units  for  the  management  of  affairs  bearing  on 
local  welfare  in  districts  of  small  size." 

Public  attention  was  diverted  from  the  modest 
tasks  of  the  Zemstvos,  during  the  first  year  of  the 
Constitutional  activity  of  the  Duma.  And  yet 
their  history  was  not  without  influence  on  the 
course  of  events ;  for  they  reflected  the  dis- 
appointment of  the  well-to-do  classes  with  the 
disorder  and  the  socialistic  schemes  which  accom- 
panied the  liberation  movement.  A  wave  of 
reaction  arose  not  only  in  Government  circles, 


TOO      SELF-GOVERNMENT    IN    RUSSIA 

but  also  among  the  squires  and  the  business  men. 
The  Zemstvo  and  town  assemblies  of  the  years 
1907-1910  gave  expression  to  this  reactionary 
tendency  by  stopping  a  good  many  undertakings 
aiming  at  the  spread  of  popular  education  and 
other  progressive  reforms.  This  period  of  dis- 
illusionment was,  however,  of  a  short  duration, 
and  after  the  restoration  of  order  the  great  majority 
of  the  Zemstvos  and  of  the  municipalities  returned 
to  the  path  they  had  been  following  before  the 
revolutionary  era.  Discontent  with  bureaucratic 
rule,  and  the  consciousness  of  duties  in  regard  to  the 
cultural  progress  of  the  people,  became  again  the 
leading  tendencies  of  Zemstvo  groups.  The  neces- 
sity of  developing  local  institutions  was  proclaimed 
as  one  of  the  principal  tasks  of  the  third  Duma 
convened  on  a  restricted  franchise  devised  by 
Stolypine.  A  good  many  meetings  of  the  legislative 
chambers  and  of  their  committees  were  devoted  to 
the  discussion  of  local  reforms,  but  the  stubborn 
resistance  of  the  Council  of  the  Empire  made  it 
impossible  to  carry  out  any  comprehensive  scheme. 
The  only  tangible  result  of  some  importance  was 
the  passing  of  the  law  of  June  15,  1912,  for  the 
reorganisation  of  local  courts. 

This  statute  put  an  end  to  the  confusion  be- 
tween administrative  and  judicial  functions  which 


SELF-GOVERNMENT  AND  THE  WAR   101 

characterised  the  rule  of  the  land-captains  as  in- 
itiated in  1889.  The  office  of  justices  of  the  peace, 
which  had  been  abolished  by  that  law  everywhere 
except  a  few  cities,  was  revived  with  the  view  of 
substituting  a  regime  of  legality  for  the  arbitrary 
awards  of  administrative  officers  :  the  justices  are 
elected  by  the  district  assemblies  on  the  basis  of 
rather  high  property  qualifications,  varying  from 
3000  to  15,000  Rb.  in  capital  value.  Suits  for  minor 
sums  between  peasants  and  cases  concerning 
succession  and  agrarian  disputes,  as  well  as  petty 
criminal  jurisdiction  in  regard  to  this  class  of 
citizens,  were  reserved  to  peculiar  volost  courts  held 
by  elective  peasant  judges  and  administering  local 
customs  recognised  by  the  judges.  Thus  the 
peasantry  was  still  kept  isolated  from  other  classes, 
and  the  idea  of  a  unit  of  local  self-government 
independent  of  class  distinction  was  defeated  for 
a  time.  Even  in  this  curtailed  form  the  Act  of  1912 
was  a  step  in  advance,  but  its  introduction  in  the 
different  provinces  is  not  a  rapid  process ;  it  has 
been  delayed  in  a  number  of  governments  by  the 
present  war. 

Although  the  terrible  struggle  of  the  world  war 
hampers  in  many  respects  the  peaceful  evolution 
of  the  nation,  it  has  given  rise  to  such  a  display  of 
energy  and  patriotism  on  the  part  of  self-governing 


102      SELF-GOVERNMENT    IN    RUSSIA 

bodies  that  it  is  bound  to  exercise  a  beneficial 
influence  all  along  the  line.  Russian  society  in  its 
counties  and  towns  is  passing,  as  it  were,  the  test 
of  a  most  severe  examination,  and  the  results 
achieved  could  not  be  more  brilliant.  No  one  will 
have  the  right  henceforth  to  speak  contemptuously 
of  the  lack  of  initiative  or  the  inability  of  the 
Russians  to  manage  corporate  interests.  Innumer- 
able workers  drawn  from  all  groups  of  society  have 
given  their  time  and  strength  without  stint  or 
bargain  to  the  common  cause  ;  they  have  continued 
their  efforts  under  tremendous  pressure  for  months 
and  months  ;  they  have  solved  difficult  problems 
set  before  them  without  any  warning,  and  some- 
how their  capacities  for  action  have  proved  as 
elastic  as  the  tasks  themselves.  Misfortunes  and 
reverses,  instead  of  discouraging  them,  have  spurred 
them  on  to  ever-increasing  efforts.  Whatever  the 
future  may  bring,  every  Russian  has  the  right  to 
look  with  pride  and  hope  on  the  gigantic  work 
achieved  by  the  country  in  this  time  of  trial.  Let 
us  notice  some  particulars  of  this  national  achieve- 
ment. 

The  first  scenes  of  the  drama  were  enacted 
in  Moscow — in  the  historical  centre  and  heart  of 
the  country.  On  July  31,  on  the  news  of  mobili- 
sation, the  town  council  was  convened  for  an 


SELF-GOVERNMENT  AND  THE  WAR   103 

extraordinary  meeting  in  order,  as  the  chairman 
put  it,  that  "  Moscow  should  utter  its  word  about 
events."  The  leader  of  the  progressive  party, 
N.  Astroff,  gave  voice  to  the  general  feeling  in  an 
eloquent  speech.  "  Fate  has  decreed,"  he  said, 
"  that  our  generation  should  be  responsible  for  the 
future  of  the  country,  for  its  integrity,  its  power 
and  its  majesty.  Confronted  by  the  historical  event, 
of  the  tragic  conflict  of  nations,  we  all,  however 
different  our  opinions  may  be  as  to  home  politics, 
express  our  unanimous  indignation  against  those 
who  dare  break  the  peace,  who  are  guilty  of 
bringing  on  this  misery,  this  catastrophe,  this 
crime  against  humanity  and  civilisation.  We  are 
profoundly  and  firmly  conscious  of  our  duty  in 
regard  to  the  past  and  to  the  future  of  the  country, 
and  we  shall  fulfil  to  the  end  what  we  have  to  fulfil. 
We  shall  close  our  ranks,  we  shall  renounce  the 
strife  which  encourages  our  enemies,  and  we  shall 
defend  our  native  land  like  one  man."  He  moved 
that  Moscow  should  tender  its  service  to  the  Army 
and  Fleet  by  taking  care  of  the  wounded  and  sick, 
that  one  million  Rb.  should  be  voted  at  once  to 
meet  the  first  requirements  of  the  work,  and  that 
a  committee  of  the  town  council  should  be  formed 
in  order  to  co-operate  with  the  executive  board  for 
carrying  out  all  the  necessary  measures.  The  motion 


104      SELF-GOVERNMENT   IN    RUSSIA 

was  carried  unanimously,  and  the  joint  committee 
appointed  under  it  resolved,  at  its  first  meeting  on 
August  i,  to  inform  all  the  municipalities  of  the 
Empire  of  its  action  and  to  invite  their  co-operation. 
The  Zemstvo  of  the  province  of  Moscow  made  a 
similar  move  and  two  congresses  were  called  with- 
out delay — one  of  representatives  of  the  Zemstvos 
on  August  12,  and  the  other  of  representatives  of 
the  towns  on  August  21.  The  result  of  these 
meetings  was  the  creation,  with  the  sanction  of  the 
Government,  of  two  Unions — the  All-Russian  Zem- 
stvo Union,  with  Prince  G.  Lvoff  as  president,  and 
the  All-Russian  Union  of  Municipalities,  of  which 
M.  Chelnokoff,  Mayor  of  Moscow,  became  eventually 
President.  The  duplication  of  the  Unions  corre- 
sponds to  the  difference  in  the  social  grouping  of  the 
people  in  Russia,  the  squires  and  peasants  in  the 
provinces  keeping  rather  apart  from  the  merchants, 
factory  owners  and  artisans  of  the  towns.  At  the 
same  time  it  has  to  be  noted  that  the  two  Unions 
have  acted  together  on  the  present  occasion  with 
the  most  complete  concord.  The  scope  of  their 
operations  was  originally  restricted  to  the  organisa- 
tion of  hospitals,  the  transport  of  sick  and  wounded, 
and  the  provision  of  medical  help  and  material 
equipment ;  but,  as  we  shall  see,  their  activity  was 
gradually  extended  beyond  these  limits. 


SELF-GOVERNMENT  AND  THE  WAR   105 

In  the  beginning  of  the  war  it  was  thought  that 
the  Unions  would  confine  their  efforts  to  the  manage- 
ment of  base  hospitals  in  the  inner  provinces  of  the 
Empire,  while  the  Army  Medical  Staff  and  the  Red 
Cross  would  serve  the  needs  of  the  battlefields  and 
of  the  war  zone  to  which  the  portion  of  the  Empire, 
roughly  speaking  west  of  Minsk,  was  assigned. 
The  enormous  number  of  casualties  overruled  these 
calculations,  and  the  Unions  were  drawn  by  necessity 
into  work  within  the  war  zone.  This  raised  an 
important  question  of  finance.  The  Zemstvo  Union 
disposed  of  12  millions  Rb.  from  rates  and 
voluntary  contributions.  This  sum  would  have 
enabled  it  to  keep  up  only  some  25,000  to  30,000  beds 
and  to  run  a  couple  of  hospital  trains.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  number  of  patients  to  be  tended  rapidly 
rose  to  hundreds  of  thousands.  It  became  clear 
that  the  Unions,  while  presenting  the  best  means 
for  organising  social  help,  would  have  to  carry  out 
functions  which  fell  primarily  to  the  duty  of  the 
State  and  which  could  not  be  borne  financially 
without  assistance  from  the  State.  Up  to  March  i 
the  Zemstvo  Union  received  accordingly  subsidies 
from  the  Treasury  to  the  amount  of  44  millions  Rb. 
(about  £4,000,000). 

The  cost  of  fitting  out  a  bed  to  serve  surgical 
cases  was  reckoned  at  100  Rb.,  while  the  upkeep 


io6-     SELF-GOVERNMENT   IN    RUSSIA 

of  one  wounded  was  made  out  to  be  on  the  average 
32-4  Rb.  per  month. 

The  plan  for  the  evacuation  of  the  wounded  by 
the  Unions  was  based  on  a  general  estimate  made  by 
the  Army  Staff ;  the  probable  figure  of  wounded  to 
be  transferred  and  located  per  month  had  been  put 
at  200,000.  The  flow  of  these  wounded  was  to  be 
received  at  five  distribution  centres — at  Petersburg, 
Moscow,  Kiev,  Kursk  and  Kharkoff — and  directed 
thence  towards  the  base  hospitals  of  five  districts 
consisting  of  provinces  radiating  from  the  five 
centres.  It  was  calculated  that  a  wounded  soldier 
would  remain  on  an  average  ten  days  in  the  centre 
hospitals  and  three  weeks  in  the  district  hospitals, 
from  which  he  would  be  sent  on  to  some  con- 
valescent home  or  minor  hospital  for  the  treatment 
of  light  cases.  The  actual  flow  of  wounded  which 
passed  through  the  hospitals  served  by  the  self- 
governing  organisations,  amounted  to  about  60,000 
by  September  i,  to  120,000  by  October  i,  150,000 
by  November  i,  154,000  by  December  i,  164,000 
by  January  i,  and  170,000  by  February  i.  Two 
more  distribution  centres  were  added  to  the  original 
scheme — Ekaterinoslav  and  Rostoff  on  the  Don,  in 
connection  with  the  campaign  against  Turkey. 
Moscow  had  to  assume  the  lion's  share  of  the  work, 
60%  of  the  whole  number  of  the  wounded  passing 


SELF-GOVERNMENT  AND  THE  WAR   107 

through  its  various  hospitals  in  the  earlier  stage  of 
the  war.  The  relative  importance  of  the  different 
centres  is  reflected  in  the  number  of  sanitary  trains 
assigned  to  them  by  the  Zemstvo  Union.  In 
December,  31  trains  ran  from  and  to  Moscow, 
12  from  Petrograd,  9  from  Orel,  3  from  Kursk 
and  7  from  Kharkoff.  It  has  to  be  noticed  in 
this  connection  that  the  Zemstvo  of  Kursk,  famous 
as  a  stronghold  of  reactionaries — the  "  Uroxen," 
as  they  were  nicknamed — was  the  only  provincial 
Zemstvo  which  refused  to  join  the  Union  and  pre- 
ferred negotiating  directly  with  the  Army  authori- 
ties ;  the  result  was  that  the  Kursk  province,  though 
not  Kursk  town,  proved  an  inconvenient  block  in 
the  general  system  of  evacuation.  A  most  im- 
portant item  of  the  organisation  of  the  Zemstvo 
Union  was  the  formation  of  stores  for  the  provision 
of  linen,  wadding,  warm  clothing,  etc.  Up  to 
February  i  there  had  been  provided,  for  instance, 
7,500,000  pieces  of  linen,  10,000,000  pieces  of  warm 
clothing,  etc. ;  altogether,  the  cash  turnover  of 
the  stores  amounted  for  the  six  months  under 
consideration  to  20  millions  Rb.  received  and 
20  millions  Rb.  spent.  A  great  quantity  of  materials 
from  the  stores,  especially  in  the  shape  of  warm 
clothing,  were  delivered  to  Army  units  in  the  field 
in  view  of  pressing  needs  which  could  not  be 


io8      SELF-GOVERNMENT    IN    RUSSIA 

promptly  met  by  the  regular  commissariat ;  such 
deliveries  assumed  great  proportions  in  the  months 
of  December  and  January,  and  are  represented  by 
half  a  million  Rb.  on  the  accounts  of  the  Zemstvo 
Union  for  these  two  months. 

The  efficient  management  by  the  Union  of  the 
task  of  providing  the  hospitals  and  stores  of  the 
organisation  with  materials  and  manufactured 
goods  attracted  the  attention  of  the  Army  Com- 
missariat and  induced  it  to  place  large  orders  for 
the  preparation  of  linen  and  clothes  for  the  Army 
with  the  Union.  Such  orders  began  in  October, 
1914,  and  soon  reached  gigantic  figures.  7,500,000 
complete  outfits  of  linen  were  prepared  by  the 
Zemstvos  in  two  months,  by  means  of  workshops 
for  the  cutting  of  pieces,  and  of  distribution  stores, 
in  which  the  cut  pieces  were  handed  out  to  women 
workers  for  sewing  and  collected  on  the  completion 
of  work.  In  Moscow  35,000  women,  chiefly  be- 
longing to  families  of  soldiers  at  the  front,  are 
taking  work  in  this  way.  It  may  be  of  interest 
to  note  that  a  full  outfit  (shirt  and  trousers)  of  linen 
is  paid  for  by  the  Commissariat  at  the  rate  of 
24  kopecks  (6d.).  The  costs  of  the  material  to  the 
Union  is  6-78  kop.,  the  labour  15-5  kop.,  the  cutting 
i  kop.,  the  remaining  0-72  represents  sundry  small 
expenses — transport,  accounting,  etc.  The  enor- 


SELF-GOVERNMENT  AND  THE  WAR   109 

mous  work  of  distribution  and  collection  is  per- 
formed mainly  by  poor  law  guardians  and  by 
co-operative  associations.  The  aim  is  to  get  rid 
as  much  as  possible  of  sweating,  and  the  success  of 
the  Union  in  this  respect  has  been  a  striking  one. 
Through  its  co-operation  with  the  Commissariat  it 
has  been  able  to  revolutionise  the  labour  market 
in  more  than  one  branch  of  industry.  A  striking 
instance  of  the  effect  of  substituting  the  social 
organisation  for  profit-seeking  middlemen  is  afforded 
by  the  orders  for  tailor-made  goods.  The  Com- 
missariat forwarded  to  the  Union  large  orders  for 
breeches  and  jackets,  partly  for  the  Serbian  Army. 
The  Union  placed  these  orders  as  much  as  possible 
in  the  hands  of  artels  (co-operative  societies)  of  the 
tailoring  trade  in  the  Moscow  province, — with  ex- 
cellent results.  The  piece  wage  for  making  a  pair 
of  breeches,  for  instance,  rose  from  13  kop.  to  19 
kop.,  the  making  of  a  military  tunic  of  a  rather 
elaborate  pattern  costs  i  Rb.  20  kop.  instead  of  80 
kop.,  and  the  like.  A  similar  organising  activity 
was  developed  by  the  Union  in  connection  with  the 
provision  of  surgical  instruments  and  of  drugs. 

A  wide  field  of  work  was  open  for  services  con- 
necting the  base  hospitals  and  stores  with  the 
armies  in  the  field.  The  Union  took  over  a  number 
of  hospital  trains,  provided  them  with  the  necessary 


no      SELF-GOVERNMENT   IN    RUSSIA 

personnel  of  medical  men,  nurses  and  bearers,  and 
equipped  them  with  medicaments  and  food.  On 
February  i  the  Union  had  forty-four  sanitary 
trains  of  this  kind  in  its  charge.  A  special  feature 
of  the  system  was  the  formation  of  advanced 
columns  for  action  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood 
of  the  fighting  lines.  A  full  column,  as  constituted 
towards  the  beginning  of  the  current  year  after  a 
good  many  tentative  experiments,  consists  of  some 
three  or  four  motors  for  rapid  transport  of  the 
medical  personnel,  of  sixty  horse  carriages  with 
150-180  horses,  campaign  kitchens  and  baths.  Its 
outfit  costs  about  100,000  Rb.  and  its  upkeep  about 
20,000  Rb.  per  month.  It  can  serve  a  sector  of  some 
12-15  miles  in  width  for  the  purpose  of  carrying 
wounded  to  the  hospitals,  picking  up  exhausted 
men,  providing  food  and  some  rest  for  tired  men, 
etc.  After  arriving  on  the  scene  of  operations  it 
generally  deploys  into  three  "flying"  detachments 
which  keep  in  touch  with  each  other  and  may 
eventually  reassemble.  By  February  the  Union  had 
nineteen  columns  of  this  kind  at  its  disposal. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  describe  in  the  same 
detail  the  work  achieved  on  parallel  lines  by  the 
Union  of  Municipalities.  It  may  be  sufficient  to 
state  that  it  was  in  no  way  inferior  to  that  of  the 
Zemstvo  Union  in  point  of  organisation  or  efficiency. 


SELF-GOVERNMENT  AND  THE  WAR   HI 

The  budget  of  expenditure  calculated  to  be  covered 
to  a  large  extent  by  help  of  State  subsidies  amounted 
to  some  35,000,000  Rb. 

In  order  to  get  a  more  concrete  view  of  the 
efforts  of  a  leading  city  in  the  cause  of  the  war  the 
best  thing  to  do  is  to  review  the  activity  of  Moscow, 
the  ancient  capital  and  the  real  centre  of  Russia. 
This  can  be  done  on  the  strength  of  a  statement 
presented  by  the  Mayor,  M.  Chelnokoff,  to  the 
Tsar  during  a  visit  of  the  latter  towards  the  close 
of  1914.  There  were,  by  December  i,  66,646  fully 
equipped  beds  in  the  city,  of  which  2062  belonged  to 
hospitals  under  the  patronage  of  Empress  Alexandra, 
of  the  Imperial  family,  of  the  Red  Cross,  and  of 
the  community  of  SS.  Maria  and  Martha,  682  beds 
in  hospitals  of  the  Zemstvo  Union,  4639  equipped 
by  the  Stock  Exchange  and  the  Merchant  Guild, 
9°53  by  private  subscription,  14,853  by  the  city 
with  contributions  from  private  donors,  23,533 
entirely  by  the  city,  and  11,824  by  the  medical 
department  of  the  Army.  For  the  accommodation 
of  the  wounded  there  were  1314  hospitals  and 
hospital  wards.  The  staff  of  the  city  hospitals  con- 
sisted of  206  supervising  guardians,  1354  doctors, 
3442  trained  nurses,  and  4128  probationers,  second- 
class  nurses,  bearers,  etc.  Apart  from  these  there 
was  a  staff  of  1599  attached  to  the  distribution 


H2      SELF-GOVERNMENT    IN    RUSSIA 

centres.  From  the  beginning  of  the  war  up  to 
December  i,  239,682  sick  and  wounded  of  the 
Russian  Army  had  passed  the  Moscow  distribution 
centres,  as  well  as  31,103  prisoners.  In  the  Moscow 
city  hospitals  there  had  been  in  the  course  of  that 
period  96,735  sick  and  wounded,  of  whom  427  had 
died,  43,658  had  left  under  the  supervision  of 
military  authorities,  and  52,540  were  under  treat- 
ment. On  November  28  there  were  actually 
occupied  in  the  Moscow  hospitals  55,140  beds,  and 
only  1540  were  vacant.  Thereupon  the  city  decided 
to  equip  12,000  beds  more,  in  order  to  meet 
further  requirements.  For  the  treatment  of  infec- 
tious diseases  10,000  beds  are  available.  The  work 
of  carrying  and  transporting  the  wounded  from 
the  trains  to  their  various  destinations  was  managed 
by  a  voluntary  guild  of  1300  men,  consisting  of 
students  of  the  high  schools,  civil  officials,  artists, 
etc.  Convalescents  leaving  the  hospitals  are  pro- 
vided with  warm  clothing  and  linen,  the  soldiers  of 
regiments  formerly  stationed  in  Moscow  have 
received  Christmas  gifts.  The  families  of  soldiers 
called  up  for  service  from  Moscow  are  receiving 
separation  allowance  in  addition  to  that  granted  by 
the  State  (i  Rb.  40  kop.  per  month  in  addition  to  the 
State  allowance  of  3  Rb.  60  kop.  per  grown-up  person) . 
Besides,  1,205,6=56  Rb.,  making  about  10  Rb.  a  month 


SELF-GOVERNMENT  AND  THE  WAR   113 

per  family,  have  been  expended  in  assisting  families 
whose  household  economy  had  been  grievously 
affected  by  the  calling  up  of  their  bread-winners. 
With  the  help  of  the  boards  of  guardians  and  co- 
operative societies  the  city  distributes  a  great 
amount  of  labour  among  the  families  of  soldiers 
called  to  the  colours  :  1,200,000  pieces  of  linen  are 
distributed  by  this  method  every  month.  The 
boards  of  guardians  and  450  assistants  who  have 
volunteered  for  this  service  supervise  the  distribu- 
tion of  money  and  goods  to  fugitives  from  districts 
occupied  by  the  enemy.1  Besides,  Moscow  city 
has  voted  large  donations  to  help  the  devastated 
districts  of  Poland  and  Serbia.  Altogether  the  city 
has  spent,  in  the  course  of  the  first  four  months  of 
the  war,  8  millions  Rb.  on  various  objects  connected 
with  the  war. 

We  have  not  the  means  of  following  the  further 
development  of  the  activity  of  Russian  self-governing 
units  and  unions  with  the  same  wealth  of  details 
and  documentary  completeness.  But  we  must 
characterise  briefly  the  stages  reached  in  the  course 
of  the  second  half-year  :  they  are  momentous  and 
full  of  promise.  Towards  the  middle  of  February  a 

1  This  applies  to  the  first  months  of  the  war.  This  item 
has  been  enormously  increased  in  consequence  of  the  evacuation 
of  Poland. 


H4      SELF-GOVERNMENT    IN    RUSSIA 

second  congress  of  representatives  of  the  munici- 
palities of  the  Empire  took  place  in  Moscow.  Apart 
from  reviewing  the  work  achieved  in  the  field  of 
hospital  assistance,  distribution  of  labour,  help  to 
fugitives,  etc.,  it  discussed  the  general  situation  of 
the  towns  as  affected  by  the  war.  Circulars  had 
been  addressed  to  the  various  towns  inviting  them 
to  state  their  needs  and  observations  in  connection 
with  sanitary  and  economic  matters ;  a  good  many 
municipalities  sent  in  very  instructive  replies,  which 
were  summarised  for  the  use  of  the  Congress.  In 
presenting  the  report,  N.  Astroff  laid  stress  on  the 
necessity  of  a  wider  and  more  energetic  treatment 
of  social  and  economic  problems  by  the  town 
authorities,  the  Union  of  Municipalities,  and  the 
State.  "  The  war  that  has  convulsed  the  world," 
he  said,  "  has  strained  to  the  utmost  the  intellectual, 
economic  and  material  forces  of  Russia  :  it  leads 
to  great  changes  in  the  internal  life  of  the  country. 
Processes  of  internal  change  are  not  effected  by 
leaps  and  bounds.  But  the  march  of  extraordinary 
events  makes  changes  inevitable,  and  there  are  no 
forces  capable  of  staying  these  changes."  Two 
crying  needs  were  brought  home  with  especial 
urgency — the  need  of  extensive  measures  of  sanita- 
tion and  the  necessity  of  concerted  and  drastic 
action  to  organise  traffic  and  to  stem  the  inordinate 


SELF-GOVERNMENT  AND  THE  WAR   115 

rise  in  prices  of  commodities.  Unless  measures  of 
sanitary  reform  were  carried  out  on  a  wide  scale,  there 
would  be  imminent  danger  of  the  spread  of  infectious 
diseases.  To  mention  one  point :  towns  in  which 
cavalry  units  had  been  formed  were  littered  with 
refuse  from  the  horses,  and  yet,  not  to  speak  of 
sewerage  which  existed  only  in  17  towns  out  of 
996,  a  great  number  of  municipalities  were  deficient 
even  in  ordinary  barrels  for  sanitary  transport ! 
Water  supply  was  also  far  from  sufficient  and  its 
use  was  not  properly  organised.  One  of  the  main 
reasons  for  such  a  state  of  affairs  was  to  be  sought 
in  the  inadequate  budget  of  the  towns.  As  for  the 
rise  in  prices,  it  was  due  not  only  to  the  enormous 
requirements  of  the  Army  and  to  the  dislocation  of 
traffic  created  by  the  demands  made  by  the  Army 
Administration  on  the  railways,  but  also  to  the 
haphazard  treatment  of  trade  and  intercourse. 
The  moral  of  the  report,  as  well  as  of  a  memor- 
andum presented  by  the  Petrograd  delegation,  was 
the  urgent  necessity  of  introducing  fresh  elements 
and  fresh  energy  into  the  management  of  national 
affairs,  the  removal  of  friction  between  bureau- 
cratic authorities  and  self-governing  units,  the 
mobilisation  of  the  forces  of  self-government  for 
the  solution  of  problems  arising  on  all  sides. 
Undoubtedly  the  weight  of  the  rebuke  as  regards 


n6      SELF-GOVERNMENT    IN    RUSSIA 

the  unsanitary  condition  of  the  towns,  fell  primarily 
on  the  inertia  and  low  cultural  standard  of  muni- 
cipal authorities.  But  they  could  plead  as  their 
excuse  the  starved  state  of  municipal  finances, 
conditioned  by  deficiencies  in  the  organisation  of  the 
towns  on  a  restricted  franchise,  and  by  the  pressure 
of  State  requirements  and  supervision.  The  conduct 
of  the  Union  and  of  the  leading  cities  during  the 
war  had  amply  shown  in  any  case  that  there 
was  plenty  of  patriotic  spirit  in  the  centres  of  town 
life,  and  many  workers  capable  of  tackling  the  most 
arduous  problems  with  zeal  and  efficiency,  provided 
the  best  men  were  sought  out  and  not  driven  away 
by  police  obstruction  and  class  prejudices. 

The  reports  and  speeches  of  the  February 
Congress,  though  significant  enough,  did  not  lead 
to  any  immediate  results.  The  crisis  produced  by 
the  concentration  of  Austro-Germanic  forces  on 
the  Russian  front  during  May  and  the  following 
months  imparted  a  new  impetus  to  the  march  of 
events. 

The  retreat  in  Galicia  and  Poland  called  forth 
a  heightened  consciousness  of  the  national  danger 
and  a  great  manifestation  of  patriotic  resolve. 
Towards  the  end  of  May,  at  a  congress  of  repre- 
sentatives of  trade  and  industry,  the  discussion  of 
technical  questions  was  interrupted  by  an  im- 


SELF-GOVERNMENT  AND  THE  WAR  117 

passioned  speech  delivered  by  one  of  the  leading 
Moscow  millionaires,  V.  Riabushinsky,  just  back 
from  the  front  and  full  of  the  impressions  of  the  life 
and  death  struggle  against  the  invaders.  "  The 
whole  of  Russia  forms  the  rear  of  the  Army," 
he  said.  "  We  cannot  busy  ourselves  with  our 
everyday  affairs  at  the  present  moment :  every 
workshop,  every  factory  must  be  used  to  break  the 
enemy's  force."  It  was  not  a  question  of  form- 
ing this  or  that  committee,  but  of  sinking  all 
differences  and  appealing  to  the  assistance  of  every 
able  man,  without  distinction  of  parties,  as  people 
had  done  in  the  West — in  France  and  in  England. 
Prince  Lvoff  spoke  in  the  same  strain  on  June  5 
(18)  at  a  meeting  of  delegates  of  the  Zemstvo 
Union.  "  At  this  great  historical  juncture,"  he  said, 
"  what  is  needed  is  not  criticism,  but  energetic  work. 
We  do  not  want  to  produce  irritation,  but  a  bold 
spirit  and  combined  efforts.  We  must  strive  to 
concentrate  all  the  forces  of  the  land  and  to  inspire 
Government  and  society  with  mutual  confidence." 
This  was  the  direction  recommended  by  progressive 
leaders.  The  Government  ought  to  have  recog- 
nised the  necessity  of  such  a  league  long  before, 
but,  in  any  case,  the  crisis  opened  the  eyes  even 
of  the  blind.  As  Riabushinsky  had  said,  it  was  not 
so  much  the  creation  of  committees  for  the  joint 


u8       SELF-GOVERNMENT  IN  RUSSIA 

management  of  munitions  and  supplies  that  mat- 
tered, nor  one  or  the  other  change  in  the  Cabinet, 
but  the  recognition  of  the  fact  that  the  Govern- 
ment is  powerless  without  the  country,  and  that 
with  the  support  of  the  country  it  is  invincible. 

It  is  a  pity  that  mutual  confidence  between 
Government  and  Society  does  not  exist,  but  I 
think  it  will  be  found  that  Russian  intellectuals  will 
continue  their  efforts  in  the  direction  of  self-govern- 
ment with  the  same  stubborn  resolve  which  has 
been  shown  by  the  Russian  armies  in  the  field. 
And  whatever  mishaps  may  be  in  store  for  Russia 
as  a  result  of  vacillation  and  obstruction,  the  trend 
of  history  is  sufficiently  clear,  and  will  not  be 
arrested  by  intrigues  and  party  strife.  Let  us  look 
back  for  a  moment  at  the  stages  of  the  process. 
It  started  with  the  state  of  siege  in  Old  Muscovy. 
The  calling  in  of  Western  skill  in  military  and 
economic  matters  opened  the  way  for  humanitarian 
ideals.  In  the  light  of  these  ideals  local  and  pro- 
vincial self-government  arose  on  a  narrow  class 
basis  but  with  a  tendency  to  democratic  expansion. 
The  great  emergencies  of  national  life  called  forth  a 
concentration  of  local  efforts  for  political  ends. 
These  concerted  efforts  reveal  an  active  and  patriotic 
society  ready  and  anxious  to  contribute  its  share  to 
the  regeneration  of  the  political  system. 


Date  Due 

nrr  1  1 

1965 

UtA    *  J. 

MOV  4  I' 

1 

1 

Library  Bureau  Cat.  No.  1137 

flEQl0NM .UBBWW 


123  071     1 


